Everest
by frombluetored
Summary: AU. The Doctor, recently promoted to CEO after the early passing of John Smith, enters his new job with short-lived surety. And then he meets the COO, Clara Oswald, who's just as determined to show the Doctor who's really in charge as she is to show him he'll never live up to his predecessor. Unfortunately for them, control doesn't exist in matters of the heart.
1. Day One

**A/n:** Yeah, I know..._another _AU fic? I've had this idea roaming around since Capaldi was cast and I've hesitated posting it, because we don't really know much about 12 yet beyond fan speculation, but then I decided an AU is an AU. If this ends up being OOC, it's still in character for this version of the character. Also I just really needed may-december "I'm the boss" fic because...well, does there have to be a reason? Hopefully there are some people out there interesting in reading. As always, happy reading, and thanks for all your support!

* * *

He had been made a fool of one too many times in his fifty-five years of life.

That was the only thought sliding about his brain as he dressed that morning. He buttoned his shirt, shrugged on his jacket, and tied his tie in a manner of minutes, making it to the kitchen with just enough time to sink a teabag into a traveling mug and pour water from the whistling kettle over it. By the time he was heading out of the door, briefcase in one hand and tea in the other, he was swollen with determination. This time, there would be no defeat. This time, he would stay on top no matter what.

In his youth he'd been foolhardy, idealistic, silly. Bouncing about with lovesick eyes and a fluttering heart. He had loved so intensely, so deeply, that he never once foresaw a time when he'd suddenly be alone. He never imagined he'd be this—fifty-five and sleeping in a single bed, a cat named TARDIS his only companion, drifting from job to job and relationship to relationship. He'd lost his way after his divorce and he couldn't find his way in England, no matter how hard he tried, and so he did what all little boys did. He ran away.

London had reminded him of her, anyway. The winding streets were the curls of her hair and the sharp turns on roads were the angle of her curves. He grew cold from the scenery. And if there was one thing New York City could boast, it was a lack of organic scenery.

He arrived quietly at six AM, nodding briefly to the doorman as he headed in after a quick flash of his new badge. He walked past the elevators and took the stairs, climbing each flight steadily and slowly, counting each heavy pulse in his veins. Floor one, floor two…he had to stop at four six and rest, his knees a bit achy and his heart pounding hard. Floor six, floor seven…when he finally made it to floor twelve, he was sweaty and flushed, but he knew. This time, he had made it.

His climb was nothing but a reflection of the years he'd worked to be where he was now. He'd entered the corporation quietly as an assistant manager underneath the chief technology officer and spent six years working his way up, flattering who needed flattering and manipulating who needed manipulating. And now he was here, and it was his first day as CEO, but he was still sleeping alone at night. And he couldn't admit how much that weakened his satisfaction of his accomplishment. He always felt he was trying to mend up his wounded pride over his wife's sudden departure from their marriage. Everything he did was to try and regain the man he'd once felt he was, when he was foolish and young. Even as he cursed that man and said he'd never be him again. He was nothing if not a contradiction in the form of a man.

It had been a spark in the corporal world when it was announced that he was taking over the late John Smith's position. He was relatively unknown in the corporation to everyone who didn't matter. Those who made the decision knew him well—and those who were relatively no one did not. It was the truth and he wasn't sorry for it. Bluntly put, he was too weary to make friends. Too beaten down to form non-beneficial relationships. He longed for friendship but hadn't the courage to find it, and that was perhaps the most pathetic thing about him of all.

He'd purposefully arrived before everyone else, not particularly longing for any sort of grand entrance. He found his office and he sat at his desk and he peered out of the wall-length window at the New York City skyline, thinking quietly about home. And then the thoughts were too aching to bear and he began his day. He combed through the company's financial records for a long while, making notes for the CFO of what needed changing and what didn't seem quite right, and then he logged into the system, familiarizing himself with people he'd glimpsed at from the bottom but never imagined he'd one day be in charge of. There was the CFO, Jack Harkness. The chief risk manager, Rory Williams. And then the COO, Clara Oswald, a mystery perhaps bigger than he himself was. He had never caught of glimpse of her in his years working here. He only knew that she worked very closely with John Smith. Perhaps, if rumors were true, too closely. Their interlacing job ranks ensured they'd be working together, but he was sure it would be no problem. From what he'd heard of her, she was sweet and loving. Sweet and loving he had no problem with. Sweet and loving he could bend and control with ease. And these days, it was all about remaining in control.

It was like he'd decided once he moved here: if he was in control, bad things couldn't happen to him, because he'd dictate what would happened to him. He would say what could and couldn't affect him. And so he'd made everything his, from the way he commanded a room to the name he used. He decided that his real name would be a luxury for no one but himself, and from that day onward, he was known as the Doctor. He legally changed his name to Doctor Smith (Smith because it was the most bland surname of all) and he kept his true name a secret to everyone but himself and he fully intended on keeping it that way. To know more was to have power, and he would always be the one in the room who knew the most. He wouldn't ever end up the way he'd been all those years ago, a crying mess on the tiled floor, finding out that the woman he'd thought he'd known was betraying him all along. No. This time, his world was at his command.

The morning got off to a frazzled start—his personal secretary brought him the wrong coffee and then spent five minutes blushing and rambling off apologies, only to leave and return for a second time with _another _incorrect coffee. The Doctor was content to forget about the coffee, but the shaky mess just couldn't let it go, so he had to let _her_ go. The temp they sent went by Donna Noble and the Doctor couldn't help but admire her snarky attitude, even if she was a bit lazy when it came to responding to his pages. He wasn't threatened by her anyway.

He had three meetings with CEOs of other corporations for the first part of the day. They sat on lush sofas in private meeting rooms and discussed possible product merging. The Doctor knew they were sizing him up with each stare, trying to decide how he'd size up in comparison to the man he'd replaced, and the Doctor met their stares evenly and held their gazes until they shifted uncomfortably, their eyes finding the floor.

It was known when they shook hands upon parting: he was the one they'd answer to in any future proceedings between the corporations.

The day had gone so wonderfully so far that he was thrown aback when he walked into his office, only to see a random young woman sitting behind his desk, staring out over New York. He stared hard for a moment, giving her pulled up hair, deep red lipstick, and too-short pencil skirt a critical lookover, and then he merely took a few steps back.

"Donna," he said calmly. He wasn't truly angry with her, but he knew now that if he presented himself as anything but firm, he'd get nothing but sloppiness in return. Donna looked up from her lunch, her expression momentarily reading: _can't you see I'm busy? Fuck off. _

"Yes?" She asked. She didn't add _your majesty _to the end sarcastically, but she might as well have.

He pointed back at his office.

"There is a woman behind my desk. What were my instructions about visitors?" He asked slowly, as if he were reminding a two year old for the third time in two hours that she couldn't strip her clothes off in public. Donna lowered her eyebrows accordingly.

"That any unauthorized persons must have a scheduled appointment, made at least a week in advance." She replied through gritted teeth.

The Doctor inclined his head. "Precisely, Donna. So could you explain to me how there came to be a woman in my office when I haven't even been CEO for three days?"

Donna blinked at him, her annoyed expression fading to one of…embarrassment. But the more he examined her face, the more he realized. It was not her own embarrassment. It was his.

"That's Clara Oswald." She told him quietly, probably for his own benefit. "You know? The COO?"

He felt his heart sink, just a bit. He automatically turned around, opening the cracked door and sticking his head back into his office. She was sitting in the same place, ankles crossed and hands folded in her lap. She did not wave or smile at him and he felt a lick of anger for that. He looked back to Donna.

"Forgive me. I didn't realize they were letting recent college graduates take such high-ranking positions." He said coolly.

He knew she'd heard, and he wanted her to. He didn't know where she got off sitting behind his desk in _his _office. When they hadn't even met yet. She might have run all over that young John Smith, but she was an idiot if she thought she'd do him the same. He wouldn't stand for it. He was her boss and she would respect that fact, or he'd have to have a chat with the board. That was all there was to it.

"Have a good lunch." He told Donna, and then he slipped back into his office, slamming the door forcefully behind him. He wanted the woman, _Clara Oswald_, to flinch as he did so. But when he glanced at her, she was still staring at him with those large, calm eyes. They were brown as damp earth and as his eyes raked over her face, he felt his anger only growing. What the hell was she doing here with such a high rank? Her face was full of youthful life, from her large eyes, to her smooth skin, to her line-free lips. This wouldn't do.

"Get up." He told her, first and foremost. His voice was icy and harsh. If she had expected niceties, it didn't show. Her face remained impassive. "I don't know who this John Smith bloke was before, or what he let you do, but it is not appropriate to sit in the chair of your CEO. And I'm not him."

She blinked at him, uncrossing her ankles slowly. From his place at the doorway, he caught a brief flash of the inner skin of her upper thighs as she did so, and he felt it was on purpose. He hardened his shoulders, intent to not show her one inch of weakness. He was always underestimating the greatest battles and playing up the simplest.

She made a show of staring him up and down, her hands falling from the top of his desk into her lap. He wondered, for a moment, if he'd seen them shake or if it was just wishful thinking.

"You certainly aren't." She finally replied. Her voice was soft and sweet, something she was supposed to be. Everyone always had nothing but nice things to say of her, except that she was bossy, but she had a position that required bossiness. However, the woman peering at him now was nothing short of ruthless. He expected to have to say something nasty to get her to move, but after she said that and gave him another look-over, she slowly rose to her feet. As she did so, he saw her skirt was shorter than he'd anticipated before. He stared at her legs as she crossed the room towards him, short despite the heels she had on. She stopped only a few inches from him, her shoulders squared defensively and her lips pressed into a firm line.

He was infuriated.

"Who do you think you are?" He began, and once he said that, all of his irritation was flying forth from his lips. Most of all, he hated that she'd caught him off guard like that. It was something his ex would have done—caught him off guard. Well, no more. No more vulnerability, no more loses, no more sweaty palmed declarations of love. He scoffed, looking her up and down. "You're practically a child."

She stood up straighter at that, her eyebrows rising. Her lips quirked up a moment later.

"Oh, this is great," she said, and then she _laughed. _He fumed. "A cranky old control freak. God, just when I thought this entire situation couldn't get much worse. And then we get _you_."

'This entire situation', as she'd put it, was John Smith's sudden death. Liver cancer tore a burning path through his body, leaving him dead only a year after diagnosis. From the rumors, Clara Oswald had been by his side at the hospital every single day. But the Doctor couldn't imagine why the man would have wanted her there. Currently, she seemed the type to poke you with needles while you slept.

His mouth twisted with distaste. He went to snap back at her, but when he looked at her, he suddenly remembered the way she'd looked at John Smith's funeral. She was merely a face in hundreds, but she'd touched his chin when she walked up to peer at his empty body. He was only a few people behind her and, at the time, he hadn't known who she was. He'd assumed she was someone important to the man, though. And now he couldn't help but wonder if perhaps she was hurting so badly that defense was the only coping mechanism that was keeping her on her feet.

"I know this must be hard for you, with John dying so recently—"

She laughed once, hard. Her eyes seemed darker than before and he didn't think he'd imagined the slight quake of her hands before she'd folded them behind her back.

"Oh, you know, do you?" She shot back. "You know how hard this is?"

He faltered. She reached up and jabbed a finger into his shoulder, her face twisted with rage.

"Tell me all about what you know, you clever old man. You must know oh so much, with your old, healthy, white male life. You must know all about what it felt like to bury John Smith, right? Tell me about it." She stared at him imploringly, her eyebrows drawn down. She poked him again, harder, and he felt something in him snap. He wanted to grab her tiny, delicate hand and squeeze it until she winced. "Come on, big boy. Tell me what you know. Tell me why I should listen to you—tell me why you're so much better than he is. Tell me why you think you could possibly fill his shoes."

The words were practically spat at him, her cheeks flushed with anger. He was in a similar place.

"I don't have to explain a damn thing to you, Ms. Oswald. I'm your boss and you answer to _me. _You explain things to _me. _And I'm not trying to be him, because I'm better than that. I'm going to take this corporation places he never even dreamed of, and you can either sit down and do as I say, or you can shut up and get out of my office. I'm not some dreamy, starry-eyed boy you can boss around." His heart was racing after his words drifted off, thick with selfish anger. She stared at him and, for the briefest moment, he thought she'd sink and break. But she didn't. And that made him angrier than ever. "And I don't know who told you that you could dress like that as COO, but it's going to have to stop. There's a business dress code for a reason. He might've enjoyed having you saunter into his office in your tight little skirts, but that's not how we're doing this. I don't want to see you wearing anything that gives anyone a glance at your knickers—we're a shopping chain corporation, not an adult film industry. Got it?"

She took a deep, filling breath. And then she clenched her fists.

"No, you get _this," _she started, her voice low and dangerous. And then she reached underneath her skirt and hooked a finger underneath the band of her underwear, tugging them quickly down her legs and stepping from them one leg at a time. She walked near him and grabbed hold of his hand, tight, and pressed her balled up underwear into his hand. She closed his fingers around it, her eyes hard on his. The meaning was clear. _I'm the boss here_. "And don't you forget it."

* * *

He was infuriated the entire day. It wasn't until Rory Williams came down to formally meet him that he got any answers at all.

"I see Clara's been here." He stated, once they wrapped up their initial conversation.

The Doctor flushed angrily at the mere mention of her name, so rough and ugly to his ears. He followed Rory's line of sight and spotted her underwear, balled up and lying in the waste bin. He'd dropped them to the floor as she stormed away, so angry he felt almost violent, and then had Donna throw them away because he couldn't stand to look at them. Donna had asked no questions and he had given no answers.

"Clara's got one foot out of the door as of today." The Doctor said, forcing his voice to stay even. "I'm calling the board tonight. Fucking ridiculous."

Rory frowned at that. The Doctor wondered, suddenly, if Rory was friends with Clara. He hoped not. He'd really enjoyed Rory's company so far and didn't want to think lesser of him.

"Don't do that." Rory said. He said it more as a plea and less like a command, his eyes filling with sadness. "I don't know what happened, but you have to understand that no matter how she was, she isn't normally like that. Not at all. She's one of the kindest people I've ever met, really. Give her some time."

The Doctor felt his lips turning up into a sneer. "I'm sorry, but I don't give my employees time to decide to respect me. Either she's on board or she isn't, and trust me, she isn't." He hadn't wanted to explain what had happened, because it was a hit to his pride, but he was suddenly desperate to have Rory understand how awful she'd been. "When I got in here, she was sitting behind my desk. In _my _chair. She wouldn't get up. She insulted me. She refused to listen to my suggestions about professional dress and threw her knickers at me. The professional relationship between a CEO and his COO is extremely important to a functioning corporation. I have no choice but to dispose of her."

Rory seemed to be fighting with himself as he processed those words. He leaned forward slightly, appealing to some softer side of the Doctor with his determined eyes.

"She shouldn't have been so short with you, but…she'll hate me for telling you any of this, but I don't want you to fire her. She's having a really hard time right now and losing her job won't help. Staying busy is what's keeping her afloat. She's…Christ, okay, she was married to John Smith. No one knows but my wife and I—we've all been friends since Clara and I started working here six years ago. They kept it a secret because they didn't want internal affairs to know. They were the greatest partnership I've ever seen and they knew the corporation would suffer if they were split apart for personal reasons."

The Doctor felt only slightly taken aback by that knowledge. Everyone had suspected something was going on with them, but after his encounter with the spitfire, he'd assumed it was some sort of sexual powerplay. He hadn't expected that it'd run that deep. He struggled to keep a grasp on his fury.

"I don't care about her personal dramas." He told Rory, but he realized it sounded a bit defensive. "She can't just walk in here and act like that. If she's not stable enough to be at work, she shouldn't be at work."

Rory shrugged. "I agree with that. I think she should have taken a leave of absence for a bit. But…I mean, I can't tell you want to do. But I guess I just want you to consider the possibility that perhaps she wasn't trying to piss you off when she sat behind your desk. Maybe she was sitting in that chair because she still thinks of it as her husband's chair."

And he didn't know why, but those words made his throat tighten suddenly.

"It's still not okay." He said stubbornly, but his own anger was waning a bit. He had to fight with himself to maintain his firmness. "If she doesn't shape up, she'll have to go."

Rory seemed uneasy at that. "You know, a bit of kindness would go a long way with Clara." He advised respectfully. "I mean it when I say she's having a rough time. I'm not just making excuses for a friend. He was diagnosed the day they got back from their honeymoon and the entirety of their marriage was her watching him die. Give her some time to adjust to seeing a new man in his seat, because I bet that's hard, you know? I can promise you that Clara Oswald can be either your biggest foe or your greatest ally. Give her the chance to see you as a friend and not an enemy and you'll be glad you kept her around."

The Doctor was resentful.

"Yeah, well, she won't get very far if she doesn't keep her knickers on."

Wasn't _that _a sentence he never thought he'd be saying! There was a time when a beautiful woman like Clara would have made him weak at the knees. But he was actively smothering that man for his own good.

Rory smiled sadly. "It'll all work out, you'll see."

* * *

He did not see.

Much to his displeasure, he ran into her on the elevator. His lower back was aching from the stressful day and he didn't feel like making a symbolic climb down the stairs. By the time he recognized the far too pretty woman on the elevator, it was too late. The doors were shut and they were alone.

Was it his imagination, or had her skirt gotten shorter with the lack of underwear? He wasn't sure, but he sure as hell wasn't going to let her think he was looking, so he stared with determination at the wall, his pride insisting he not say a word unless she did first. Unfortunately, her pride seemed to have dictated the same thing. They rode the elevator in silence until the fifth floor, and that was when it seemed his words from earlier had become too heavy inside of Clara. She looked at him, her eyes furious but somehow aching too. He knew the aching wasn't from anything he'd said, though.

"If you ever talk to me that way again, I'll leave this corporation and take millions with me." She said quietly.

He had so many responses lined up to shoot back, but at the moment the elevator stopped on the fourth floor and filled with board members, who greeted the Doctor politely but spent the rest of the ride chatting amiably to Clara about some Christmas party from a year back. He watched her with confusion, trying to merge the vision of _this _woman with the woman he'd just spoken to. This woman had dimples when she smiled. She tossed her head back when she laughed. She was genuine and sweet as she asked about one man's newborn daughter.

The shift was instant and hidden to everyone but him. She smiled and told everyone goodbye (save him), and then before she left the elevator, she gave him a look that actually made the hairs on the back of his neck stand.

He knew it then.

This job was not his victory. He had fighting left to do still.


	2. Bright Nights

Two days after his funeral, a man winked at her on the street, and it was _his _wink—all clumsy and awkward, and she grabbed the man's hand and pulled him home with her. She thought she was fucking a memory but she realized she was trying to fuck the memories out of herself instead. It was easy to confuse.

Grief could come in so many different forms and colors. When her mother died, her grief was navy blue: dark and desperately sad, but nothing more. She cried every night for three months until life started happening again—whether she wanted it to or not—and then she found a way to continue on ignoring the gaping mother-sized hole in her heart.

But her grief after losing her husband was nothing near that. That grief was dark red, the kind that had her lying on her hallway carpet, body stinging as she scrambled up and tried to remember why she'd wanted to invite the man into her home, much less invite him into her body. She was insane and furious, out of control and reckless, but that was the first and last time she acted out that way. She and the man parted ways with the understanding that it was simply a random encounter that meant nothing. She didn't tell him any of the words that were carving deep into the skin of her mouth. She didn't tell him: _I'm sorry, but for a moment, you looked like him. And I had to fuck you like it was him I was punishing. _

He wouldn't have understood, anyway. She couldn't explain to anyone, not even herself, why she was so inherently angry. Perhaps it was because they were cheated of the time they were meant to have together. They were married and life began for one beautiful week—and then it was over. No apologies. Perhaps it was because he had suffered so much. Perhaps it was because he left her, even when he swore to her that he never would. Or perhaps she was truly angry at herself for not being able to save him. She had always saved him, except for the time he needed it the most.

She hadn't been as angry as she was when she'd fucked that random man ever again—until she met the new CEO. Clara returned to her office that day feeling quite like she'd felt as the man walked from her house: stinging and shaky, uncertain and shamed, but all the while infuriated for reasons that probably didn't make much sense at all.

She shut her office door and drew the blinds, falling down onto her sofa with a strangely empty heart. It had been bursting with agony all morning, but now she was nothing at all. She was nothing at all a lot these days.

She lay back on the cushions and closed her eyes, because it helped not to stare at the empty places the photographs used to be. It helped to see nothing while she felt nothing. It was nice to not exist. All she'd wanted was to sit in John's chair. She wanted to see the office one last time, before the new man put all of his stuff into it. Before it wasn't John's anymore. She wanted to sit in John's chair, because it was his, and part of her had hoped that when she sat down she'd be able to feel where it'd formed to his body, or maybe that it'd smell like him somehow. Maybe she could find pieces of him somewhere, some sign that he had lived. He had been there. People were moving on and forgetting him and she was dying and that was all there was to it. She'd never planned on the new CEO coming in. He was supposed to be gone at his meeting for another thirty minutes—she'd checked. But then he was so rude, and so unlike John, and it had made her distraught. It had been so jarring, so _cruel. _Suddenly she was the same woman she'd been that day on the street, watching a stranger wink like her dead husband and falling apart because of it. And the way he'd _talked _to her—telling her what she could and couldn't wear, like she was his property. She wouldn't let anyone treat her like that. If she wanted to be talked to so disrespectfully, she would still be scrubbing floors at the Ritz-Carlton.

She made it through two meetings before the pain in her body mounted to the point of tears. She ducked into a bathroom stall and pulled her husband's bottle of Dilaudid from her briefcase shakily, swallowing it dry and stooping against the wall. Her head was throbbing with pain that rivaled any headache she'd ever had before, and she found it difficult to think about much else, but she knew in thirty minutes her head would hurt less. She'd be terribly nauseated, as the medicine always made her sick, but at least her body and head wouldn't ache. They'd prescribed it to John after he lost his leg to his rapidly spreading cancer, but he'd hardly ever touched the stuff, always trying to play down his agony for Clara's sake. They got it refilled as often as the doctor prescribed, just because Clara had feared one day he'd desperately need it and they wouldn't have any, and when he died he left behind quite a lot of unused pills. And a wife. He left behind that, too.

She walked until her nausea peaked, and then she sat down on the bench between the elevators on the fifth floor, her head lowering into her hands as she breathed quickly. She was reminded for the thousandth time how versatile grief was. It could wreck you physically just as cruelly as it wrecked your heart and there was nothing to do for it. She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt okay physically, but she was certain it was before John had been diagnosed. And there was no moment after his death that she felt all right in the slightest.

The rest of the day was a blur of headache-medicine-nausea-tiredness. By the time she was in the elevator at the end of the day, she had no energy to fight with the new CEO. The most she could say was the truth. If he would treat her like that, she would leave, and she wouldn't go quietly. She'd done too much for this corporation to be treated like shit. She'd made it too far to go back to getting bossed around by men twice her age. She felt she couldn't take anymore regression.

All she wanted was to return to her room and see her and John's baby, a chubby golden retriever named Noel, but she had errands to run before returning to the hotel she was staying at. She hadn't returned home since John had passed and she felt currently that she never would. Just the thought of walking in and hearing the complete and total lack of his laughter, his heavy footsteps, his love…it brutalized her. All she had was a bag with seven pairs of underwear, some pajamas, and a couple dress suits—Rory had offered to go to her house and pack for her when she was a huddled mess in the hospital, gripping tightly to her husband's lifeless hand and pleading: _please, please, please. Don't do this to me. Please don't leave me like this. It's too soon, please._—and he hadn't packed any of the right things, but she had been too weary to say anything and much too terrified to venture back to fix it herself. That fact had been the other blade to the double-sided wound the new CEO's comments on her wardrobe had caused. The majority of her was disgusted by the simple fact that he thought he had the right to dictate what she could and couldn't put on her own body—and the other part of her was heartbroken, because she knew she was wearing a dress suit that didn't quite fit her right, but that was only because her others were back at her beautiful brownstone that she couldn't bear to enter.

Necessity insisted that she now buy another pair of panties to replace the ones she'd thrown in a fit of rage, but she wouldn't buy new dress suits now. She would rather go into work naked than come in wearing something he might approve of. He wasn't the boss of her and she wouldn't let him even get that impression for a moment, so she stopped in Bloomingdale's and bought a new pair of underwear and avoided the clothing all together. She'd managed with what she had thus far and she'd continue managing. Fuck him. _Fuck him. _

She stopped by a pet store and bought Noel another bag of dog treats to make up for her lonely hours. She was used to being alone while John and Clara were at work, but she wasn't used to not seeing him. She knew he was gone and she whined at the door for at least ten minutes a day, turning and looking at Clara with confused eyes. Her tail thumped so happily anytime she heard a male voice outside of the door, always assuming it was her human father, but it never was. He was gone and Noel was all Clara had left.

She walked the half mile back to Waldorf Towers (one of the many pet friendly hotels) and rode the elevator up to her room, eager to be back with the only other living thing whose world was devastated by John's absence. She opened the door and entered the cool, elegant room, letting her bags fall to the floor as Noel immediately rose to her feet and began circling Clara excitedly, her tail thumping wildly. Clara kneeled in front of her dog and wrapped her arms around her neck, pressing her face into her thick fur and letting out a sigh she'd been withholding all day. She scratched Noel's back and felt her tears beginning. This was always when it started.

"I'm back," she reassured her. "Come on, let's sit. Then I'll give you dinner and your treat."

Noel followed after her as Clara carried the bags into the living room area, dropping them onto the coffee table as she herself sank down onto the sofa. Noel walked back and forth, rubbing against Clara's legs, whining about something Clara couldn't fix. Clara wondered if the dog would ever get used to seeing only one person walk through the doors. She pet Noel's head and brought her legs to her chest, resting her chin against her knees as she struggled to breathe against the gaping emptiness inside of her chest. When Noel trotted to the door and then back to Clara, nudging her ankles with her wet nose, Clara broke.

"He isn't coming back." She told her dog harshly. The words hurt her more than they hurt the dog, who just stared at her with those confused eyes, her tail still wagging away. "I'm sorry, Noel. I can't make him come back. If I could, I…oh,_ please _stop asking me to with your big, sad eyes." And then she had to press her forehead against her knees as a ragged, painful sob worked its way from her finally. It'd been building all day long. She gripped her calves and sobbed, leaning back against the couch. Noel was frantic as she hurried forward and set her front paws on the couch cushions, lifting herself up to lean forward and lick Clara's face worriedly. But tears only took the place of the ones she licked away.

Noel knew she wasn't supposed to be on the hotel furniture, but she pulled her big body right on up there anyway, lying halfway on top of Clara. Clara stretched on so her back was to the cushions and pressed her face into the dog's fur as she cried. They stayed that way, the weeping woman and her confused dog, for another hour. But then there was life to attend to. She'd never had the opportunity to grieve him the way he deserved, and the guilt of that only fueled her constant fury.

She fed Noel and then gave her three dog treats, smiling tearfully at how happy just that could make the dog. She couldn't get any work done due to the aches and pains of her body, so she took another pill, but then she was so sick she couldn't even stand the idea of looking at food, much less eating it. She went to bed hungry and tired, but no matter how hard she tried, sleep never came. There was a time when it wasn't like this. When John would have gathered her into his arms and kissed her hair. He would have said _what's wrong, my Clara?, _and she would have bared it all to him and he would have fixed everything with just a kiss and a hug. She would have fallen asleep peacefully in his arms, content in the fact that she had him and that made life okay.

But she had no one but Noel, who slept at her side but couldn't say anything at all. She took some nighttime pain reliever to help herself fall asleep, and the last thing she thought before sleep overtook her was that John would have been disappointed in her, for the things she'd said to the new CEO today, for the way she was coping with this. The last thing he'd asked of her was for her to stay safe and happy, and she'd told him she would. She lied to a dying man who had her whole heart in his hands and there would be no righting of that wrong, because he was gone forever. And because of that, she cried herself to sleep.

* * *

Mornings were cold no matter the temperature. Clara still sometimes had a few moments upon waking where she'd forget. She'd turn on her side and reach over for someone who wasn't there anymore, and when her fingers found nothing but Noel's warm fur, she felt her stomach plummet sharply.

She considered it an accomplishment to even force herself to drink a cup of tea or coffee, or to take a shower. Even getting out of bed, really. She refused to take off from work because she knew if she did, there would be no reason for her to ever get out of bed. She would lie there all day and all night and never move again. But after the terrible day she'd had yesterday, she almost felt that wasn't as scary as it'd been before. She almost felt like she wanted to tell that man to fuck off. But what then? That job was all she had left of her old life, except for a five-year-old golden retriever and a beautiful house she couldn't return to.

She was shaky from not eating the night prior, so she forced herself to eat a banana before she took the Dilaudid, knowing she wouldn't be able to eat a thing once she did. She dressed in a navy blue dress suit and white blouse, tugging on a pair of underwear and vowing to keep a hold on those this time. All she had with her were her black heels, so she pulled the same ones on. It was only her fear of discovery that got her in front of the mirror, slowly applying her customary red lipstick and black mascara. She had to add blush to keep from looking as miserable as she felt. And then she practiced smiling a couple of times. As long as she thought of work as a performance, she could get through it. She could play the part of a woman coping well. She relied too on the control she had at work, because it felt truthfully like the very last ounce of control she had over anything in her life at all. There was never anything more terrifying, nothing to make you feel quite so helpless, as watching someone you love die far too early. Knowing there's nothing in the world you could do about it. Clara needed her job, needed her control, needed that sense of normalcy. And she feared with a quivering anxiety that she was losing it because of the CEO. Another thing in her life that was being taken from her, but this time, she wouldn't take it lying down.

She'd fought her entire life to be taken seriously. Being a young, pretty woman wasn't easy. Men seemed to care less about her IQ and more about the ways they might convince her to go down on them after a conference. She had begun her time in the corporation covering her body and trying desperately to sink into the shadows, but after only a week of that, she realized she could get farther by using what they wanted to her advantage. If she showed skin, she had all of their attention, even if their attention was more on her body than her ideas. Fortunately for her, she could usually get them to agree to whatever it was she wanted. It was sickening, but that was the way it was, and she could either cry about it or use it to her advantage. She'd chosen the latter and she hadn't regretted it yet.

John was different, though. He had been different from the start. She had been a secretary in the public relations office for a month when they first met. It'd been at a Christmas party, one she almost didn't go to. She sometimes found herself thinking that maybe she shouldn't have. She would have missed so much love, so much joy, but sometimes the pain seemed worse. Sometimes the pain seemed tripled.

She hadn't sought him out, intimidated by the awkward CEO who was hired as a replacement at the young age of twenty-four. And he hadn't sought her out, because of course he didn't even know she existed. But he'd been walking past her, on his way to the bathrooms, when a drunk woman stumbled hard into Clara's side, sending her tilting towards the floor, and his arms had caught her by instinct. She remembered thinking, as she looked up into his green eyes, that this was it. This was her love. And he'd been equally certain, his cheeks pinking slightly as he righted her. She made some scattered comment about his chin, her usual flustered go-to instinct being to tease, and he'd gasped, touching it like he'd never paid much mind to it before. And after a few giggles and awkward pauses, he asked her if she'd like a drink, and everything was simple then. They talked for a month, and then they dated for two weeks, and then they were a couple. They moved in together only six months after meeting, and around that same time, his previous COO retired and he'd handpicked Clara for the job. Everyone thought she'd slept with him to get the position—she'd gotten awful emails in those days—but it didn't matter much to her, because the only person she worked with was him, and he knew why he'd picked her. It wasn't because they were sleeping together; it was because they worked so beautifully together that their relationship shouldn't have been just romantic. They needed that partnership in everything: work, friendship, life. They bought Noel on their first Christmas together, named after the Christmas song that had been playing in the background the night he caught her. On their next Christmas, they purchased that brownstone together. They got married on their fifth Christmas together and they'd gone skiing in Switzerland for a week. He was tired often, but he was a busy man. When he thought to see someone about the pain in his side, they never thought it'd be what it was. They never thought they'd hear what they did. They never imagined their life together would be over so soon, so cruelly. And she never imagined she'd watch him die before she watched him hold a newborn child that would never exist now.

The subway ride to work was dizzying. Clara stared back at the man watching at her and wondered just what he saw when he looked at her. Mostly, she wondered if she was truly fooling anyone at all.

* * *

The day wrapped itself around her tightly.

She gave five presentations back to back, shaking steadily throughout the last two, and it wasn't until her headache returned that she understood why she was shaking. It'd been nine hours since she'd taken John's medicine that morning and she hadn't gone that long without it in weeks. She desperately searched her schedule for an opportunity to duck out and take more, but she was going straight to another presentation, this one to the board of trustees. She locked her hands behind her back while her assistant set up the projector and made small talk, trying her hardest to ignore the damp sweat on the back of her neck and the almost crippling nausea overwhelming her.

She was taking a few deep breaths, her back to the men and her quivering hands clasped in front of her, steeling herself for the two hours to come. She closed her eyes and thought about how she would present the different committees' ideas while simultaneously not passing out or puking all over the floor. By the time she turned back around, a smile stretched over her red lips and her eyes perhaps a bit too glossy, she felt she could do it. She began speaking with confidence and poise, compartmentalizing her pain as much as she could—when the door opened and the new CEO walked right in.

He hadn't expected her, that much was obvious. Clara hadn't seen him all day and she'd assumed this would be how things would go from now on: they would avoid each other at all costs. His wild, gray eyebrows shot right up when he saw her, his look of surprise fading to one of outrage. Clara tried to steel herself for a fight, but the floor suddenly tilted and she felt liable to fall with it. She grasped the edge of the table, hoping it looked casual to everyone else. Her breathing was probably noticeably ragged and she thought she might actually vomit this time.

"What do you think you're doing, Ms. Oswald?" He asked her loudly.

Clara let go of the table and reached up, grasping her waist with trembling hands. She pressed her thumbs hard into her stomach, hoping that would alleviate some of her pain. She felt that swell of anger rising, unable to believe that he was calling her out like this in front of the board.

"Giving the new healthcare policy pitch to the board." She responded. Was it her dizziness that made her voice sound so weak, or was it truly like that? She wasn't sure. She hoped it was just her.

He sneered. "That's sweet of you, pumpkin, but that's the CEO's job."

Clara's nausea peaked at the same moment her anger washed over her.

"I've been doing it for five years; I think I'm more capable than someone who's only just taken this position." She snapped back. She stepped away from the table and it took extraordinary effort to walk over to her briefcase. She made sure she walked straight, as to not make the board suspicious. She knew they were watching them with confusion right now. Well, they'd soon find out how much Clara and the new CEO didn't get on anyway. Currently, Clara couldn't give a fuck if they fired her. She just wanted to lie down in her bed.

When he grasped her upper arm, it sent her over the edge. His touch was gentle, as he was obviously only trying to tug her over to the side so they could talk quietly about the conflict, but Clara went up in arms immediately. She was suddenly eighteen again, and she was on her hands and knees in the bathroom of the presidential suite after having her arm grabbed forcefully on her way to deliver clean sheets, cleaning up vomit from the floor while four businessmen laughed at her and made loud comments about her ass, about her breasts, about what a shame it was that a beautiful woman like that was on her knees for _this _reason—

Clara turned around, her hair whacking him in the face in the process. She shoved his arm off and everything shattered. Her sickness swelled alongside her anger.

"Don't _fucking_ touch me!"

He let go of her arm immediately, taking a step back from her with wide eyes. Clara's breathing was nearing a labored state and she knew she was about to vomit. She could feel it starting.

She was visibly shivering as she gathered her stuff.

"It's your audience." She snapped. "Have at it."

She ran to the bathroom as fast as she could, letting her briefcase fall to the floor once she was in. Her hands gripped tight to the edge of the porcelain sink as she heaved and threw up what little she had in her stomach. The relief following vomiting was so grandiose that she sank down onto the cold floor, the tile biting the skin of her bare thighs. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and leaned her head against the wall, taking a few shallow breaths until her heart was letting up the painful pounding.

After a few moments of shuddering quietly, she pulled her briefcase over to her and dug the bottle out, shaking another pill out into her clammy palm. She had truly thought she was the only one in the bathroom until he spoke.

"What are you going to do when you run out?" He wondered out loud.

Clara jumped and glanced up at Jack. Once she saw him, she noticed the urinals lining the back wall that she'd failed to notice before. She glanced back down at the pill in her hand and knew lying was no good. She wouldn't lie to Jack, anyway. He was one of the few people she trusted, and one of the three of her friends who knew about her and John's marriage. She tossed it back into her mouth and swallowed it as she thought of Jack's question.

"I don't know." She admitted. And right then, she didn't even want to think about it.

He sank down beside her, reaching hesitantly for the bottle. Clara let him read the label, too worn out to fight him. Jack hummed thoughtfully.

"That's known as prescription heroin to some." He said lightly. He gave the bottle a gentle shake and then pressed it back into her palm. His eyes met hers, blue and serious. "Dangerous stuff, Clara. But judging by your shakes and cold sweat, you already know that."

It took Clara a moment to stuff it back into her bag. When she glanced back at Jack, she knew he wouldn't tell, just as she knew he thought she was idiot for it.

"It makes me sick when I take it and makes me sick when I don't, but I like how it makes my head foggy." She said honestly. "And besides, you're one to talk about dangerous stuff."

Jack was kind as he slowly rose to his feet and extended his hand. Clara placed hers in it and let him pull her to her feet. He even wet a paper towel and handed it to her, pointing briefly at her mouth.

"You've got a bit of vomit on your cheek." He told her helpfully. Clara wiped at her face until he nodded. He continued.

"I'm known for the random sex party and night on ecstasy, but this is different, and you know it. Do you have a hair brush?" He questioned, pointing to her wayward hair. Clara leaned over and pulled hers from the bag, placing it in Jack's opened hand. He gently touched her shoulders and turned her so her back was to him, his fingers quickly pulling the pins from her up do. Her hair tumbled down her back and she pressed a hand to her warm forehead as he ran the brush gently through it, trying her hardest to get a hold of herself. She wasn't this, but that was precisely the problem. She felt like nothing at all, but she had to be _something_, so this is what she'd be. Because she didn't have the energy to be anything else.

Jack pulled her hair back up and refastened the pins carefully, saying nothing as he did. When he dropped his hands from her hair and Clara turned back to face him, she smiled warmly.

"Thank you, Jack." She said softly.

"It's no problem, and I'm not judging you for this. I suspect you've got a lot of reasons to want your head foggy." Jack began gently.

Clara was already shutting him out. Because she could tell what tone of voice he was using. He was using the John tone, the tone people used whenever they were going to try to breech the topic with her. But today of all days, she couldn't handle it.

"I can't talk about him." She said, and then she met Jack's eyes, hers stinging with tears she couldn't shed here of all places. "Thank you for caring, though."

Clara all but stumbled back to her office. She stepped into the adjoining bathroom and swished water around her mouth until the taste of vomit was gone, and then she collapsed on her sofa. That's where she stayed for the time she was supposed to have been giving the pitch, heart aching and stomach churning. She cried until she couldn't anymore and then she just stared at the spot on the wall she used to have the picture of her, John, and puppy Noel. Of all the people to have died, why did it have to be him? She thought she hated the god she didn't believe in more than anyone had ever hated anything before.

She'd just sat back down at her desk to try and get something done when she heard a knock on her door. It was firm and authoritative, like the person was knocking only for appearances, and just like that Clara knew exactly who it was. She thought foolishly of hiding underneath her desk, because her face was still flushed and her eyes glassy from her crying session, but avoiding this issue wouldn't make it go away. They were going to have to find a way to communicate or one of them would have to leave. It was as simple and as difficult as that.

"Come in," she called wearily.

The doorknob turned immediately, revealing the CEO, looking almost sheepish in the doorway. His tie was loosened around his neck and his suit jacket unbuttoned, like he'd been unwinding in his office too. He hesitated for only a moment and then took long, confident strides into her office. It seemed to Clara that he was trying desperately to command the room as she'd done in his office, but something was hindering him. Perhaps it was the fact that Clara had already commanded the space, with her red sofa and scattered candles. He hesitated uneasily a few steps in front of her desk, eventually turning abruptly and striding to the wall to her left, where he stood with his hands clasped behind his back, looking at the one picture Clara had managed to leave up.

"Your dog?" He asked stiffly.

Clara couldn't look at the picture with him, because she knew if she stared at it long enough, she'd see John in the background. He was sitting on the sofa in his boxers while Noel pranced for the camera in her reindeer antlers.

"Yes." She said shortly.

She knew his eyes had caught John by the way he stared intently, leaning forward just a bit, as if he could read more from the picture than was actually there. He began to speak again, and it was making Clara's skin crawl that he wasn't looking her in the eye.

"We need to talk about what happened today." He said.

Clara pushed away the dull ache in her stomach and head, swiveling her chair slightly towards the left wall.

"And we will, as soon as you look at me when you're talking to me." She replied curtly.

His gaze flew to hers, maybe from annoyance more than anything else, his lip curving up.

"Why are you such a bitch?" He demanded.

Clara felt her eyebrows rise. It was easier to deal with him in her own domain, but his words still filled her with quiet doubts. It was difficult for her to view their encounters objectively, because half the time she was too pained and sad to remember half of what was said, and the other half she was too furious to give a fuck what she'd sad. She slid her hands underneath her thighs and pinned him with her unflinching stare.

"If demanding respect is being a bitch, I'll be a bitch any day."

He took a few strides over until he was standing directly in front of her desk, so close his knees were touching it. She knew he was taking comfort in the power of towering over her.

"And why do you deserve my respect?" He asked her. "You're, what? Twenty-five at the oldest? And you don't give me any respect, so why should you get any in return?"

Clara didn't miss a beat. She ignored her instincts to slide her chair away from him and slid closer instead, leaning over her desk and peering right up into his face.

"Because the first thing I said about you wasn't cutting you down for something you can't control. Like your age. You get what you give, _sir_. You walked into that office treating me like shit. You set the tone for this, for us."

The edge of her desk was digging uncomfortably into her breasts, but she didn't lean back. He seemed to see that as a challenge and leaned down as well, his face only inches from hers.

"The hell you didn't. You were sitting behind _my desk—!"_

"I wasn't trying to make you angry! I didn't know you would be there!"

She hadn't meant to defend herself, hadn't meant to rise to his bait. She pursed her lips and leaned back slightly, something that seemed to please him greatly. She could tell he thought he'd won somehow.

"So you were invading _my _space, sitting in _my _office, and you thought it was okay as long as _I didn't know you were there_?" He asked in disbelief.

Clara faltered, just for a beat. His lips curved up into a smirk that Clara wanted to smack from his face. She took a moment to reorder her thoughts against the pain battering her skull.

"I wasn't going to touch anything." She told him. "I wasn't snooping. I just…wanted to sit for a second. Okay? I wasn't trying to…" she stopped just short of an apology, because she wouldn't give him one. Not after the way he'd called her _pumpkin _today with that condescending tone.

"Then perhaps the appropriate thing to do, upon seeing me return, would have been to stand and apologize."

Clara felt her body inching closer, bit by bit, until her ass was a few inches from the seat and the desk was digging into her stomach instead.

"I am not your subordinate." She hissed. "Either we work as partners, as equals, or you can fuck off. And if you ever call me 'pumpkin' in front of the board again, I'll make your life miserable."

_Like mine is_, she almost said. She caught her tongue before she did.

He lifted an eyebrow. "I don't know who you think you're fooling, Ms. _Clara_, but we both know very well that you have little interest in being perfect equals. You have an interest in making me _think _we're equals while you run me around."

Clara fell back into her seat, her stomach aching from being pressed up against the desk for so long. She thought about lying to him, but decided that was a waste of her time.

"I know what I'm doing." She said. "I've been co-running this corporation for five years. Forgive me for thinking that I might have a better idea of what to do than someone who's only just started." She didn't want to say the words, but her allegiance to the man she'd lost forced them from her. "And I didn't run John around. Not the way you think I did."

He sneered at her, and Clara steeled herself for whatever hurtful words were to come, but when he spoke, it wasn't about John at all. She was thankful for that.

"I might be more willing to respect your input if you didn't steal pitches out from underneath me. That was the _highest _form of disrespect I've ever—"

Clara huffed, her hands rising as she gestured emptily. "I wasn't—"

He leaned forward, his eyebrows drawn down in an angry line.

"Do _not _interrupt me when I'm talking." He said darkly.

Clara glowered, her palms itching to slap him across his smug face. She took deep breaths as he finished his sentence.

"You made me look like a fool." He said angrily.

Her anger was quick and hot. "Oh, did I? Good. Almost as bad as being talked to as condescendingly as you talked to me."

He pointed at her, his finger close to her face. "That's not the same bloody thing and you know it."

Her body was aching and she wanted him gone. The urge was sudden and complete.

"Here's what I know," she said impatiently. "I know that when John was CEO, I was always in charge of the policy pitches. I did them for five years. You haven't said a word to me since yesterday, so I had no reason to think my duties had changed much. I wasn't trying to slight you or embarrass you, okay? I was just trying to do my fucking job. I didn't want to be there as much as you didn't want me there, but until I know differently, I've got to do the things I've always done. Now get out of my office."

He straightened. "Well, from this point on, I'm in charge of all pitches. Anything to do with the board is mine. And all presentations are mine. All meetings are headed by me."

"So should I go by your house and pick up your laundry, then?" She asked sarcastically. "I must have the highest paying maid job in the city."

He waved his hand dismissively. "You can still do whatever else it is you do. Chat with coworkers and vomit in the bathroom from drug withdrawal."

Clara felt her stomach drop. Her spine straightened as she leaned back in her chair, her face twisting with uneasiness.

"How did you—"

He laughed mockingly. "I'm not an idiot. I know what withdrawal symptoms look like, no matter how hard you try to hide it. And I saw your hands shaking yesterday too. Little too long between bathroom visits? Perhaps you should try setting aside a friendly five minutes to keep yourself doped up."

She set her feet on the ground and pushed her chair back a little, his gaze suddenly smothering.

"I'm just coming down with the flu." She lied. "Mind your own business."

The look in his eyes was suddenly different and hard to place. "Since I've taken all of your responsibilities away, it would make sense for you to take a week or two off. You know, to get yourself over that flu."

She was shaking, but this time it was from anger.

"You can't do this." She said. "I won't go home. You can't do my job for me. It's mine. I know how to do it, and I do it well. I won't let you belittle that just because you hate me."

He reached up and tightened his tie, peering at her almost thoughtfully. "I could say the same to you."

"Get out. Didn't I tell you to _get out_?" She demanded. She was beginning to feel awful again, and her eyes automatically darted to her briefcase near the sofa. She didn't know why she was surprised when he caught that and followed her gaze.

"If I looked in that briefcase, what would I find?" He asked her calmly.

Clara's heart froze. She worked to maintain her control. "Nothing, because you're not allowed to go through my personal belongings."

"Would there be something bad enough to get you fired?" He wondered. "Because I bet there would be."

She peered at him uneasily, her hands regaining their quivering. "You're threatening me."

His gaze was cruel. "Why the hell are you here? Your husband died, what? Two weeks ago? What are you doing here? Trying to ensure no one ever fills the spot he left? Are you here just to run off anyone who dares to sit where he sat?"

She didn't remember standing. She was certain she'd be sick again. "I'm here because I fucking want to be! Because this is my job. And I don't need you to remind me that he died. Who the hell even told you that we were married?" It was like once she started, she couldn't stop. Her vision was slanted as a wave of vertigo overcame her. "I've dealt with men like you my entire life and after all the work I've put in, I won't do it again. I won't be treated like I'm some little girl playing make believe in Daddy's office. Fuck you! You don't know what it was like. You don't know how hard I've worked and you don't know what his last days were like, you have no _idea_ how horrifying it's been to watch him die, so forgive me for wanting a bit of normalcy!" She paused to catch her breath, her palm pressing over her stomach. "I'm not trying to impede you—I just want things to be the way they were. I just need that."

He was cold as he neared the door.

"Things won't ever be like they were before. New CEO, new rules." He replied shortly. "If you're hoping things will be the same, you're going to be achingly disappointed."

She watched him open the door, her heart still hammering in her chest and her palms sweaty.

"You can refuse to take time off, but you're going to be pretty damn bored here. And if I ever suspect you're taking drugs while on the job, I'll report you the minute I notice. Have a good night, Ms. Oswald."


	3. Dead Hearts

**A/n**: Sorry for the long wait! Thank you all for the reviews, favorites, and alerts, I appreciate them so much! (Also, I apologize for any silly mistakes I may make when writing about businesses- I studied Early Childhood Education and Spanish in college and I'm afraid I don't have the time available that it would take to become as proficient with the business world as this story calls for)

* * *

By the time he got home, it was dark and Tardis was pissed.

It took him twenty minutes to coax her out from underneath the sofa, and when she finally crawled out, she refused to let him touch her. He followed her around the apartment muttering frustrated apologies, but the cat was having none of that. The Doctor decided to leave her alone when she aimed a hiss at him.

"Fine," he said crossly, "but this is the hand that feeds you. So it's not a very smart move. I can't help how late I'm at the office."

She stared at him evenly with her bright blue eyes, and he could have sworn she was imagining clawing his face off. He pouted and resisted the urge to stamp his foot. He hated when his cat was angry with him.

"FINE." He repeated, and then he stormed out of the kitchen, leaving her curled up on top of the fridge.

He ate dinner in bed, surrounded by what felt like hundreds of pieces of paper. By the time he was done, and he still hadn't seen head or tail of Tardis, his sighed and begrudgingly went to seek her out. He moved her food bowl to the bottom of the fridge and opened a can of food, scooping the contents out and flinging them in. Then he glanced up at her. She was still staring hard at him with her piercing blue eyes, so he huffed and crossed to the pantry, opening a small container of sardines. By the time he dumped those in and glanced up, she'd rested her gray head on the top of her paws. He backed out of the kitchen slowly, stepping around the corner, and he counted to ten before he peeked his head through the doorway. Sure enough, Tardis had darted off the top smoothly, landing right beside the bowl. She ate it daintily, her tail swishing back and forth as she did, and the Doctor couldn't help but smile. She'd come around by bed time.

He worked until four in the morning. The amount of presentations he had to come up with for the following day was overwhelming, but the Doctor told himself it was freeing. They were his presentations now, and really, why did the position of COO even exist? He didn't need her. He didn't need anyone. He could run this corporation singlehandedly and take it higher than it'd been before. She could stay at her house and snort coke all night long with random young men for all he cared.

He fell asleep around four-thirty and woke up at six. He wasn't feeling too well from his lack of sleep, but he drank three cups of tea and carried on. He met with the CEO of Macy's for three hours, but it ended up being a waste of time. The only good thing was the breakfast buffet. The CEO wanted to incorporate their products into their store, but with the fee, the Doctor didn't foresee much profit. People heading into Macy's weren't looking for luxury traveling products.

He grabbed a pimento cheese sandwich from a café and ate it on the elevator ride up to floor eleven, too exhausted at this point to even review his notecards for the meeting he was headed to. He decided he'd do his best and had faith that, somehow, that'd be enough. When he arrived, he stared at the empty room in confusion for a full ten seconds before he realized what must have happened.

Jack Harkness picked up on the second ring.

"Hello, boss!" He greeted cheerfully. "How's Macy's?"

The Doctor was smoldering with angry heat. "Where the hell is everyone? The meeting on our shares starts in one minute."

There was a heavy pause, one that the Doctor could tell was filled with horrifying realizations for Jack. He was quiet for a moment as he obviously scrambled to hide the words that threatened to tumble from his mouth.

"Uh…well…" he floundered.

The Doctor clenched his fists and then unclenched them. He took a measured breath.

"What did she do?" He practically growled.

"What did _who _do?" Jack asked innocently.

The fact that Jack was protecting her made the Doctor even more infuriated. He paced a few steps into the room and slammed his fist down onto the tabletop, the joints in his wrist aching from the force of it.

"You know damn well who I'm talking about!" He snapped.

Jack's voice was sheepish. "She sent out a group email. Uh…said you had a meeting? And that the shares meeting was rescheduled for this morning at eight."

He didn't even remember storming from the meeting room. One minute he was staring blankly at the wall, his hands shaking, and the next he was jabbing his finger at the elevator up button. He hung up on Jack without any prior words, his rage narrowing his mind until all he could think about was how _angry _he was. And how much he wanted to punish Clara Oswald for how difficult she was making this for him. And how fucking sickening it was that—somehow—he could find himself feeling sorry for her when his anger had dwindled down to nothing but bitter soot.

It was still burning fiercely right now, and he didn't even knock on her office door this time. She jumped when he burst in, her eyes widening in surprise, and for a moment he just locked eyes with her and seethed. And then he was a flurry of motion. He slapped his hands down on top of her desk and bit the words out, digging his teeth into the flesh of each letter and letting the bloodshed puddle on Clara's lap.

"How dare you. How _dare _you. You don't deserve this job. You don't deserve any of this. And when I go to the board and request your disposal, I'll do it with a smile."

Her eyes narrowed slowly, bit by bit, until she was staring evenly at him. It was only the hidden shaking of her delicate shoulders and hands that tipped him off to her ongoing instability. He hardly knew her, but already his eyes were attuned to seeking out those tremors, hidden so skillfully from every other set of eyes. He wondered sometimes if she'd even hidden it from her husband's eyes. Had the last CEO seen her for what she really was? Or was she different still? And did it make her burn so hotly to know that he could see straight through to her vulnerability whenever he even so much as thought of her walk?

He almost didn't notice it. But he saw her turn slightly to the side, just far enough to use her knee to slowly push a drawer all the way in. The urge to storm over and tear every content from it was overwhelming.

"Do it. See if I care." She finally said. But there was no weakness to her tone, no resignation. It was pure venom, like she knew her bite was worse than his. "I know everyone on that board personally. I used to take care of George Maitland's children, back when I was—I know them well. So fuck with me as hard as you can, Doctor, because I need something to entertain me. It gets awfully boring up here."

He stared at her, at her shiny brown hair, at her youthful skin that should have been so glowing, but instead told stories of sleepless nights and sickliness. He found it amazing that someone so awful, so controlling, could look so innocuous on the outside. Could have such wide, brown eyes that seemed to insist that, no matter the circumstance, she wanted nothing but the best for whomever she was talking to. But perhaps _that _was her venom. And perhaps it was stronger than his.

But he knew what made those big eyes darker.

"You aren't in a place to talk so big, Clara. Don't forget what I know."

He crossed over behind her desk in only three strides. He reached down and yanked her drawer open, the same one he'd seen her shut before, just as she realized what he was doing. Her panicked reach for him was just too slow; he had the drawer opened before her fingernails even pressed into his forearm.

He felt victory uncurling in the pit of his stomach. It was preparing to give a long stretch, as he was sure he'd see coke or _something_, but instead he felt it tumble at what he did see.

Clara was visibly shaken up. She reached over and shoved the drawer hard, forcing the Doctor to remove his hand in order to keep from getting his fingers smashed. He blinked and looked up at her, suddenly unsure of what to say. She rose from her own desk and retreated away from him like she'd been punched in the gut, seeking refuge on the opposite side of the room from him. Her voice was wavering and when she found her anger, he felt almost afraid. He watched her cheeks burn with rage as her hands went to her hipbones, her fingers pressing into her stomach almost as if the entire situation made her sick, and then she crossed the space between them again. When she stopped in front of him, he thought she'd yell, but she was quicker still.

He caught her wrist tightly before her hand made contact with his face. He was surprised by how fragile it felt between his hand, like he could give the slightest twist and it'd break right underneath his skin. She angrily shook his grip off, her chest heaving. She was beyond words.

"You don't get to do this!" She screamed. The sound filled the room so shrilly it was almost embarrassing. "You don't get to treat me like this!"

His anger matched hers in everything but youthful passion.

"And you don't get to steal my meetings up from underneath me! You don't get to think you can lay a finger on me!" He countered.

Her fingers clutched the collar of his shirt before he could blink and she clung tightly.

"I'd claw your face off if I didn't think it'd be an improvement," she bit out.

He bowed his head and leaned forward, so close that he could feel her breath against his face. He kept her gaze and refused to drop it, not even when he felt some loose ends River had left sparking from the intensity of her stare.

"Go ahead."

They held their gaze for six excruciating seconds.

"You couldn't do the meeting. Because you were going to make a mistake." She informed him. Her voice had lowered from a shout to almost a whisper, as if their close proximity had reduced her anger to a quiet hiss.

"A mistake? What fucking _mistake_?" He ground out between clenched teeth. He wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her.

She refused to look away and he was similarly determined. "Jack says you're planning on offering Andrew Dalek a company share. I figured that was this meeting. And you can't and if you'd consulted with me even _once, _you'd know that!"

He leaned back from her, simply because the urge to grab onto her shoulders was getting overwhelming. He laughed bitingly.

"You're still withholding John Smith's grudge against that client?!" He barked. "News, darling, I don't give a shit about your half-assed conspiracy theories. And for your information, I wasn't going to offer it to him."

It was a lie. He fully intended on offering it, but he didn't want her to know that. He didn't want her to know any of his plans. He wanted her completely in the dark because knowledge was power.

"It isn't a conspiracy theory! Something isn't right with Dalek's finances and investments and John was always right to steer clear of it! Don't you fucking lie to me!"

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm not John, and I'll do whatever I want!" He couldn't stop the next words. "Is this what you do, anyway? Sit up here and stare at stowed away photographs of your dead husband? Because I understand why you spend most of your time doped up. It's pathetic. It's laughable. Why mourn something that isn't ever coming back? No amount of self-pity will bring your husband back and neither will pissing all over my job like it's your shared territory with a corpse! I'll bet he was glad to have that death sentence, knowing he'd be freed from _you_."

He was certain she was going to hit him. He braced himself for the sharp impact of her hand on his cheek, and oddly, he almost found himself longing for it. He waited tersely and tried to understand why he felt almost disappointed when, instead of hitting him, she took a few steps back. And then a few measured breaths. And then she nodded her head.

"Fine." She said. When she repeated it, it was softer and almost more to herself than anything else. "Fine. You know I—no. Okay. You can have it this way. I'll sit here all day and do nothing and get paid for it, and if you want to run this entire corporation to the ground yourself, you can. You can. You want all of this power and responsibility? You want this much control? Have it. Be my fucking guest. I'm done. I don't want it anymore—I _can't_ want it any more." She stuck her hands into her pockets and pinned her damp gaze on him. "But know one thing: I watched John run this alone for the years before I knew him. And it nearly damn killed him."

She walked back to her desk and sat down. She slammed the drawer with hidden pictures shut, her hands shaking. She didn't look at him again.

"Have it." She repeated again.

He walked from the office, leaving her behind with her dark eyes glued to the desk. He spent the rest of the day trying to understand why his victory felt like such a defeat.

* * *

When he was younger, his father's advice in every situation was to work harder. Sad? Work harder. Stressed? Work harder. Bored? Work harder.

It was advice the Doctor took to heart and advice he thrived on in the business world. Until suddenly working harder simply wasn't enough.

He'd only been doing it alone for two weeks, but by the end of the second week, he knew he was deteriorating because of it. Two weeks of sleeping an average of three hours a night with a steady diet of caffeinated beverages and poorly-refrigerated pimento cheese on stale bread might have been manageable when he was in his twenties, but not anymore. He constantly had a cold and his heart was almost always beating far too quickly, but he didn't see another alternative. Besides, he was convinced it would eventually get better. Eventually he'd figure out how to manage all of the responsibilities and it would be better. Or at least he hoped.

He had at least one thing to be thankful for, and that was Ms. Oswald's absence in his life. He hadn't spoken to her since their explosive fight in her office and he was completely content with that fact. He caught sight of her every day in Jack's office—she was usually sitting beside him on the sofa, sometimes with Rory Williams and sometimes without—but neither said a word to each other. She continued receiving a paycheck and he continued working and he was perfectly okay with paying her salary, just to have the freedom to be without her and her bossy mouth.

And true each time he saw her she looked worse and worse too, with rapidly paling skin and collarbones beginning to protrude a just a little too much, but it wasn't his problem. He knew it wasn't, and yet he had to remind himself of that at least three times a day. He watched her sometimes when he'd see her walking down the hallways, with her quivering hands and frail waist. When she wasn't pissing him off and meddling in his life, it was easier to view her in an objective reality. And in that reality, he pitied her.

Of course, pity was another one of his father's topics of advice. He'd told him to never extend pity onto anyone, as pity was a condescending emotion that offered no constructive help to anyone, but the Doctor did it despite. And perhaps he'd cursed himself because of it.

It was the end of the third week and Clara Oswald was at his office door. She had on her red pencil skirt and a too-large white blouse that was tucked almost carelessly into her skirt, bits of material billowing over the waistband and adding an almost Victorian touch to her otherwise sharp appearance. She opened her mouth and he automatically steeled himself, annoyance rising instinctively before she spoke, but then Donna hurried through the door and stepped right in front of her.

"Doctor, I really need to talk to you privately," Donna rushed out.

The Doctor's annoyance was unfortunately projected onto Donna, as she was standing in the place Ms. Oswald just was.

"What is it?" He snapped angrily. "Tell me now, I haven't got all day."

Donna faltered. "Well, I really think…" she trailed off and looked back at Ms. Oswald quickly, who was waiting for her turn to say whatever she'd traveled to his office to say. Donna looked back to the Doctor after clearing her throat uncertainly.

The Doctor noted passively that she was being quite unlike herself with her hesitancy, but he was ready for them both to go.

"Come on, come on!" He urged, waving his hand towards Donna.

Donna let out a breath and then averted her eyes. The words were quiet when she finally spoke them. "I've just received a call from London. Your wife…" Donna stopped. She met the Doctor's eyes. "She's dead."

To say it was like something sucked all the air from the room couldn't quite cover the breathlessness that overcame him. He felt as if he were on an elevator and traveling steadily down, but no matter how long he waited and stared at Donna, the ride never stopped.

"She's my ex-wife," he corrected automatically, and he was stunned to hear that his words sound a bit like he'd been punched in the gut. But not as stunned as he was when he realized he was going to cry. He'd never imagined that she'd die, but had he, he would have assumed he wouldn't have cared so much. She was gone and that part of his life was over. But he'd be a liar if he didn't say there was some part of him that always thought there was a chance it might start up again.

He'd forgotten Clara was there. Donna hovered uneasily for a moment before walking cautiously over to the Doctor's side and giving his arm a gruff pat, and it was then that he locked eyes with Ms. Oswald. It was only for a moment, but in that moment, he saw the distant shape of his sobbing form in her big, brown eyes. And then she was hurrying away, her arms crossed over her stomach and her hands cupping her elbows.

* * *

It was dark then and he took to his father's advice more than he ever had before.

He felt River's absence scattered throughout his body like cancerous tumors and he was convinced he'd find the cure in productivity. He worked harder than before and did not let himself cry again. Crying was weakness and he still felt the aftershocks of his embarrassment to have been that weak at any point in time.

He found himself daydreaming about all the good times he'd had with his ex-wife when he might have cried. After their divorce he'd sworn to forget those memories, he buried them and shouldered the bad times, but it was this point in his life that they resurfaced. And they ached.

He wondered sometimes, usually right before falling into a deep sleep, if this was the pain Ms. Oswald carried around every day. But after he had the thought he always felt guilty for it, like comparing the two situations was inappropriate somehow. He just wasn't sure if that was because he felt his pain was greater or lesser than hers. Objectively, her situation was much worse, and her pain should have been tenfold his. But he still wasn't convinced that she wasn't a heartless, manipulative bitch underneath it all.

Rory and Jack advised him against making any sort of deal with Andrew Dalek's advertising company, but it was that very reason that he decided he would. He was the boss and he would make the decisions; it wouldn't do to have all these people assuming they knew better than he did. He was the CEO and he knew what was best. And the company soared until it didn't. Slowly he began slipping up, his poor lifestyle, impossible schedule, and personal issues crashing together. On a night four weeks after he heard of River's death, he jerked awake at four AM with a horrifying realization. He was soaked in sweat and in his mind he saw something he'd typed up in a contract all too clearly: _$2400000. _It was the budget to the new renovations plan he'd sent to the building committee three weeks ago and he'd added in an extra zero without meaning to. The timetable meant the materials would have already been purchased, the contractors paid in advance. That kind of money per store would devastate the corporation financially.

He didn't sleep. He went to work and waited in the dark for Donna to arrive, and when she did, he jumped out at her in a hurry. She shrieked, not expecting to see him so early or so frazzled.

"Fucking—don't_ do_ that!" She yelped irritably.

The Doctor's heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his head. "I need to see a copy of the file you faxed three weeks ago, the renovations plan."

It took Donna a few minutes to locate it—her desk was a bit messier than the Doctor would have preferred—and the Doctor could hardly breathe as he waited. When she handed the file over to him, he flipped through it quickly, locating the spot on the last page he was _sure _he'd messed up and typed $2400000. But what he saw was $240000.

He looked up at Donna, his heart rate gradually lowering.

"This doesn't make sense," he blurted. He gave the paper an angry shake. "I remember typing the wrong number. But this is right. Did you change it?"

Donna furrowed her brow. "Why the hell would I have changed it? Looking over this stuff is the COO's job, not mine."

He waved that comment off. "Either I'm losing my mind or someone changed this!" He persisted.

Donna shrugged and looked at him oddly. "I'm sure it was just Clara. You need to limit the tea and coffee, buddy."

The Doctor was quick to assume Donna meant what he thought. "No, no, she doesn't do that anymore. Or much of anything. Are you _sure _that you—"

The look Donna had on her face stopped his words. Confused and maybe a bit worried, like she was certain she was about to get fired. He felt his heart squeeze.

"What?" He demanded.

Donna lifted her hand to her mouth. "I thought you knew," she breathed.

He took a step closer, his grip on the paper increasing until it was crumpling in his grasp. "Knew _what_?" He growled.

She averted her eyes. "She made it sound like you both agreed on it."

He finished balling the file up in his anger and concern and then tossed it onto the top of Donna's desk. "_Agreed on what?!" _

Donna looked back up at him. "Um, for the past month Clara's been receiving all of your outgoing contracts and documents and ideas through email after the work day ends and she's been checking them and sending them back around four AM…."

He exploded. "What?! Who gave you—what the _fuck_—you can't just send material like that through email to random people! Who the hell trained you?! I'm going to have your job, and then your reputation, and you'll never—why are you rolling your eyes at me?!"

"Because she's not a random person? She's the person you're supposed to be working side-by-side with. So forgive me for assuming that the COO was doing the COO's job." Donna replied, without missing a beat.

He reached up and tugged at his hair, turning his back on her as he tried to control his rage.

"Don't send her anything else unless I sign off on it." He said lowly.

"Fine." Donna snapped. "But it's a good thing I did, or else your ass would be on the line."

And he knew that, that's what made him angrier than ever. He automatically began storming towards Clara's office, to yell at her and find a way to punish her for this, but when he arrived at the glass door, he stopped in his tracks. Clara's face was pressed into the crook of Jack's neck and—judging by the shaking of her delicate shoulders—she was crying.

He told himself it was pity that made him turn around, not concern or compassion or anything akin to that. His throat was thick only because he was so worn thin, not because he suddenly wondered if maybe she felt the things he'd been feeling for weeks. After he arrived back at his office, he spent the entire day uncomfortable because abruptly he felt that maybe he hadn't pinned Clara Oswald down. The woman he'd thought she was would have wormed her way into his documents, yes, but when she fixed his mistakes she would have boasted about it. And she hadn't been changing any of his big decisions or anything that really mattered, only checking and fixing things that didn't seem quite right, and she'd been doing it quietly. It was likely that no one knew but him, her, and Donna. And the fact that she'd done it all on her personal time, sending all of it back in the middle of the night, around the same time the Doctor was finally finishing up for the night too...it made no sense to him.

For the first time, he found himself reviewing all of the interactions they'd had, and wondering if perhaps he'd been unnecessarily cruel. He couldn't come to a logical conclusion, but he did know one thing, and that was that—no matter how much he didn't want to admit it—she had saved his ass and the company was better for that. He was relieved, even if that relief was tainted with frustration and humiliation.


	4. The Absence of God

**A/n**: Sorry for the wait! I had to rewrite a couple of times. Thank you so, so much for the follows, favorites, and of course the reviews. You're the greatest and I hope you continue to enjoy.

* * *

In all honesty, she'd forgotten about the annual corporate dinner.

If John were still alive, they would have been planning it and working on it together for months and months, but he was not. And she had not. Between her power struggle with the CEO, her sleepless nights righting his wrongs, her triggered sorrow in the face of his, and her ever-growing drug dependence, she hadn't even noticed that it was sneaking up on her until it was too late.

She usually walked past her house when taking Noel on walks, just to make sure it hadn't been broken into in her absence, but this time when she approached it she noticed something _was _out of the ordinary. A car that belonged to the woman she thought of as her sister.

She stopped dead in her tracks on the sidewalk, immediately thinking of the pills tucked in her purse and her missing fifteen pounds and her limp hair and every other thing her sister would pick up on the minute she saw her. She considered running in the opposite direction, but like most things in her life, it was too late. Her sister's blonde head had swiveled to the sidewalk and she'd seen her.

"Clara!" She called loudly, her face split in her typical jaw-dropping smile. _This is the real face that launched a thousand ships, _her brother-in-law always said. Clara had always thought that true. Her sister's innate goodness had a way of radiating outward until she herself appeared to be purely beautiful in a way only nature could be. Because of that, her name had always been fitting.

She weighed her options (deception and honesty) as her sister sprinted towards her, face still stretched with a smile. It was when she got close enough to see Clara—really see her—that her running dwindled down to a slow walk, her smile twisting down to a quizzical look. By the time she was right in front of Clara, her lips were slightly parted and her eyebrows furrowed.

"Hi, Rose—" Clara started, but Noel cut her off with an excited whine. She hurried over to Rose's legs and nudged her nose against her hip, her tail wagging so frantically that it was slapping Clara hard in the thigh. Rose would normally kneel down and hug the dog, but this time, she didn't move except to passively pat the dog's head.

"What's happened to you?" Rose blurted out.

Clara chose deception out of fear, not the wisest choice, but things chosen out of fear often weren't.

"Nothing." She said defensively. "What are you doing here?"

It sounded snappy in a way she hadn't meant for it to. Rose lifted an eyebrow.

"I drive all the way from Minnesota and you want to know what I'm _doing here_?" She demanded.

Clara shut her eyes briefly, her mind struggling to find the words she needed, the words that said _it's not that I don't want to see you, it's just that I don't want you to see _me.

"Well, yeah." She finally said. "It's far. What's the occasion?"

Rose looked at her with even more confusion. "Are you joking? The annual dinner is this Friday. I know you didn't say anything about it, but you and John always used your plus-ones to let David and I come, and I figured this year you might want to have someone there since..."

She stopped sharply, her words tumbling into each other. She cleared her throat lightly.

"David's back home. He's got this lobster thing in Maryland on Sunday so I figured I'd go to the dinner with you and then head out there Saturday morning and meet him." She finished. She flashed a hesitant smile. "I'm your plus one."

Under any other circumstance, Clara would have been so relieved to see her that she would have cried on her shoulder. But today she couldn't do anything but stare at her in horror, the implications of this flying into her face. She'd have to stay in her house. She'd have to either tell Rose about the drugs or find a way to hide it, but hiding it would prove to be near impossible. And she'd have to pretend that everything was okay with someone who had seen her at her worst many, many times. There would be no fooling Rose, and for that, Clara felt the extreme need to tell her to go home.

"It's really sweet of you," Clara started slowly, "but—"

Rose reached down and pulled Noel's leash from Clara's hand, stilling her objection as she began walking towards the house. Clara struggled to match her pace, her objection lodged in her throat.

"I don't want your buts, Clara." Rose said firmly. "Your mommy's gone crazy, hasn't she, Noel?"

Noel jumped and wagged her tail even harder, looking up at Rose with the happiest eyes. Clara felt helpless as she followed Rose up to the front door of her house, her heart sinking hard into her stomach. She'd doped up right before the walk and had been feeling all right, but she wasn't even going to get to enjoy the sparse moments of comfort now, because her distress was making her nauseated despite. Rose gave the doorknob a turn and then looked to Clara, obviously waiting for her to open it. Clara burst.

"You can't go in. You can't stay. You can't come to the dinner. You have to go."

She thought being blunt would get the job done, but it had the opposite effect. Rose turned her attention fully on Clara.

"Tough. I can go in and I will. I'm your sister." Rose argued back.

Clara's eyes were burning and she was feeling the itchy sensation of desperation.

"You _aren't _my sister." Clara snapped automatically. Even though she was in every way that mattered. Clara's parents died when she was only sixteen and Rose's mother had been her foster mom for the two years until she turned eighteen. Jackie Tyler wasn't the best foster parent by any means, but she cared for Clara like her own.

"Yeah? Prove that I'm not." Rose challenged, but Clara couldn't. They both knew genetics meant nothing. Rose held out her hand and gave her fingers a commanding wiggle. "Where's the key?"

Clara averted her eyes. The silence was long and draining.

"Back at the hotel I've been staying at." She finally muttered.

Rose sighed deeply and Clara didn't have to look at her to know she was frustrated. She automatically took a slight step back, wanting to put as much distance between herself and her sister's disappointment as possible.

"What else?" Rose asked tiredly. Clara looked up at her hesitantly, unsure exactly what Rose was asking. "You've spilled one thing on the front stoop, might as well spill the rest in one go, that way we don't have to spend the entire night playing keep-away with your secrets."

Clara couldn't look her in the eye. "Nothing else. I'm fine."

She thought Rose would fight her on that, but she was surprised when she felt her looping her arm with hers. She gave her a gentle tug towards her car.

"Come on, then. I'll drive us to the hotel."

Clara glanced up at Rose in surprise, her heart slowly unknotting. When she didn't feel exposed, she could feel genuine joy at seeing her sister. She smiled softly and found the words she wished she could have given Rose the minute she saw her.

"It's good to see you, Rose." She admitted. Even if the circumstances weren't ideal.

Rose smiled back at her and laughed a bit. "It's great to see you, little sis!"

Clara narrowed her eyes playfully. "You're a year older than me. A measly year!"

Rose reached across them and hovered her hand above Clara's head. "And about…three inches taller. Maybe four. Have you been shrinking?"

Clara gave her arm a hard tug, sending her off balance and causing her to lower her arm to right her equilibrium. Clara's laughter sounded a little weak, but it filled her chest with warmth and ease. This she liked. She liked being allowed to pretend everything was all right. She hadn't laughed in a very long time.

They had to pet Noel for no less than three minutes before she'd climb into Rose's car. She wasn't a fan of car rides in the slightest and kept giving the seats vaguely distrustful looks, her black nose tilted up into the air like some spoiled rich child. Clara climbed into the front seat once her dog was in the back, and immediately her nose was assaulted by a familiar scent.

Rose held the folded-over paper bag out to her, half her mouth quirked up in a grin.

"These are for you." She said.

Even the smell made Clara's stomach clench painfully, but she reached out and took the bag anyway. She set it carefully on her legs and stared at the greasy paper, her lips holding a smile that was both small and huge all at once. Small in size, huge in meaning. The first time Rose and Clara had ever talked it was over fries. Jackie had applied to be a foster parent for the extra money, and it was true that when they received Clara—fresh from her three week stay in the hospital and trembling—it was more than Jackie or Rose had anticipated. What was there to say to a sixteen year old girl who seemed unable to say anything at all? Who looked at everything the same way she'd gazed up from the wreckage at her parents' mangled bodies? Neither knew and for the first week nobody said much of anything. Jackie talked at Clara, explaining where the towels were and how often they did laundry and any other thing she could think of, but Clara said nothing at all. It was at the start of the second week that Rose had stuck her head in Clara's bedroom and attempted to bridge the gap. She'd awkwardly held out a huge bag of fries and said: "Want some? I asked my boyfriend to bring me some and he went a little overboard. I definitely can't finish these alone and, well, they say it's awful to waste food." Clara knew it was awful to waste food—her family was far from living in poverty but they couldn't afford to waste anything either—but it was really Rose's nervousness that won her over. She felt in that moment that there must be something in her worth fighting for if this girl she didn't even know was trying to cheer her up. She'd nodded and uttered her first word ("Sure.") and Rose had grinned widely in victory and hurried over, plopping right down beside her. In her other hand she had a DVD. "Ever seen Moulin Rouge?" She'd asked. And the two spent that night working their way through the fries and watching the movie twice and Clara remembered feeling that things might be okay. She was certain then that she'd never be truly happy again, but things might be manageable. And for such a small gesture on Rose's part, it had meant such a huge deal to Clara.

It was once they got on the road that Rose turned the stereo on, and immediately Clara was torn between laughing and rolling her eyes as the first few notes of "Lady Marmalade" filled the car. She looked at the window, biting back her smile.

"You're trying too hard," she said.

"You're worth it." Rose replied.

It was sweet, but it left Clara with such twisting sadness that it felt a bit like it was constricting her heart. She wished selfishly that everyone would just leave her alone and let her self-destruct. They made it all so complicated.

Rose walked Noel up to the room Clara had been staying in, Clara guiding not too far behind them. Clara walked into the kitchen once Rose set her stuff down in the living area. She dumped most of her fries into the trashcan while Rose was "touring" the hotel suite. She quickly dropped the trashcan lid shut when she heard Rose's footsteps approaching.

Rose's expression was an unsettling mixture of concern and anger.

"Who the _hell's_ in your bed, Clara?" She demanded.

That would be Clara's other complication. She couldn't help but laugh at what Rose obviously assumed, because it couldn't be anymore off base.

"It's just Jack." She hurriedly explained.

Rose's shoulders lowered with relief and she was off, screaming Jack's name excitedly. Clara heard the bed squeak and Jack groan as Rose presumably pounced onto him. They'd always gotten along well.

After the two said hello, Rose walked back into the kitchen, this time suspicious again.

"Wait. Why exactly is Jack in your bed?" She wanted to know.

_Because I cried on his shoulder so long yesterday that I fell asleep in his arms and he offered to help take me home and then I started crying again and I took too much medicine and got really dizzy and he stayed because he was worried and he's my best friend and…_

"I was out drinking last night and I didn't want to risk a subway ride home," Jack lied from the doorway. "She said I could stay here. We had a slumber party." Jack heaved a dramatic sigh. "I tried to protect her honor. I said 'where do you want me to sleep?' and this vixen said 'my bed, of course'. But don't worry, we only talked about poetry all night."

Rose accepted that lie easily, as it was definitely something Jack would do. She smiled again and leaned over, looping an arm around Jack's shoulders.

"Cute and sensible," she teased. "You're going to make some man or woman really happy one day, Jack."

"Oh, trust me, I already do."

Clara dumped the rest of the food into the trashcan while they were teasing each other and then set the empty bag onto the counter, wiping her hands with a paper towel like she'd been eating them all along. Rose beamed at her and then took Jack's hand and began pulling him to the living room, intent on catching up. They hadn't seen each other since John's funeral, but they hadn't exactly talked much then either.

Before he left the room, Jack gave her a reassuring nod, his way of wordlessly promising her he wouldn't say anything to Rose. Clara smiled back weakly, her shaking hands tucked away behind the counter. She and Jack had only grown closer since his discovery in the men's bathroom almost three months ago now. He was the only one who knew (other than the CEO, but he didn't count as he only used that knowledge to threaten her) and he was solid in a way she'd never known he could be. They were good friends before, but their relationship was formed through John, as Jack was his friend first. Now they were forced to become friends on their own terms. Jack was hedonistic and selfish on the outside, but Clara had come to realize in the past few weeks that he could be wholly selfless and compassionate if only the person earned his love. And somehow, she'd earned it. And his concern. She got a lot of that. Sometimes she wondered if he only stuck around because he felt bad for her, but then he'd do things like go out of his way to hunt down the blandest soup he could find on his lunch break so Clara would actually eat something with him, and she'd remember. There was golden lace inside Jack Harkness, delicately spun to lie on an altar table, and she could see it clearly now, even if it was hidden just beneath the black fishnet and leather that the world saw.

He stayed for dinner that night, somehow sensing the nervous fluttering of Clara's heart when she thought about being alone with Rose's questions. The three had an almost normal meal, and if Clara hadn't spend the entire hour nervously trying to figure out how she could get the bottle of pills from her purse on the counter to the bathroom without Rose noticing, she might have enjoyed it more. Jack didn't like what she did, and he didn't respect it, but he at least understood. And that was why he pulled Rose into the bedroom to show her the "window view" while Clara quickly pulled the bottle from her purse and pushed it down into her pocket, her stomach and head pains battling to be her number one ache. In the end, her head won, and she sat behind the counter as she took another pill.

She was skittish the rest of the night, somehow convinced that Rose could smell the lies on her skin. They sat beside each other on the couch—Noel curled up between them—and watched television, but neither of them seemed to be in it. Rose kept shooting glances towards Clara every few moments and Clara couldn't even look her way at all, afraid eye contact would open the door for a conversation.

The question came an hour into their TV-watching marathon, and Clara wished she was dead.

"Are you doing it on purpose?"

Clara's eyes drifted shut with chagrin as her stomach jolted at the question. Her instinct was to play dumb and in her startled state, that was what she did.

"Doing what on purpose?"

Rose's touch was light and hardly noticeable as she touched Clara's collarbone, jutting sharply up from her shoulder. Clara comprehended the question but she couldn't burden Rose with the answer.

"This," Rose finally said, after a too-long silence on Clara's part. "How much weight have you lost?"

The topic made Clara's skin crawl because Rose didn't understand. It felt like she was a child who had just fallen down and slammed her head hard into the concrete all because of a leg cramp, but when she went to the doctor's office, all they did was treat her cramp. And blood kept pouring down her face, soaking her collar, sliding down between her breasts and down to her navel. And no one saw, no one cared. Or maybe she just didn't want them to.

She stared at Rose's wedding ring. She swallowed thickly and thought to the ring at her house, the ring John had picked so carefully. The ring she'd hardly ever worn.

She often thought there needed to be a word for the sickening desperation for days past. It was more than an emotion. It was a solid thing. There was so much she would have changed if she could just go back in time, so much she would have righted. But she couldn't and she wouldn't. And Rose's question was still hanging in the air like the blade of a guillotine.

"I don't know." She lied. "I've been stressed."

Rose studied her face intently and the gaze was so probing that Clara felt a sudden lick of anger towards her foster sibling. She wanted to yell at her, to force her from the hotel, to tell her she wasn't welcome. Because she didn't want help, she was sure...but somewhere inside of her there was a voice and it was saying: _yes I do. Please, I'm here. I'm still alive. I didn't die with him even though I wish I had. I need help, please. How do I live on my own again? I never wore his ring. He went to three states and thirty-three stores to find it and I never wore it. I never wore it. I think it's closed around my heart._

"You're upset." Rose started gently. "And you have every reason to be. But, Clara…we all knew this was coming. We knew it for a very long time. You promised him you'd be okay, you had time to prepare."

Blame. Rose was giving her _blame_, as if she didn't have enough of it already. She stood up in one quick motion, suddenly certain she couldn't stay in the room any longer. Rose meant the best, she always did, but sometimes…sometimes the things she said were choking in their honesty.

"I know I did. It was a lie I told the dying man that I loved." Clara snapped. Her voice was weathered through. "And I'm sorry, but until you know what this feels like, until you've felt your husband's hand go slack in yours—you have no idea. There is no preparation for this. And I'm doing the best I can."

The realization hit her hard, her knees weakening. The cruel honesty of it, the disgusting disappointment—it all blinded her for a moment. She was doing the best she could. And it was so fucking _awful. _

She lifted a hand to her mouth and turned her back to Rose, closing her eyes against this all once again. Sometimes she wished she'd never open them.

"I'm sorry you came all this way," she finally muttered, and then she disappeared into her bedroom, her body aching deep down in her bones.

* * *

She took twice the normal nighttime dosage because her muscles were stinging and her heart was pounding out of her chest with crushing anxiety. She was high when Rose carefully knocked on the door, or as high as the drug could get her- it left her woozy and delirious more than anything now. In the beginning there'd been brief rushes of euphoria, but that had long drained, like the end to a couple's honeymoon phase. Now she was taking it to make it through the days, like a beaten down wife sleeping with her husband just to maintain peace. Nothing was ever the way it should have been.

Rose's voice was far above her, around her—Clara stared at her tiredly and watched her spin counterclockwise, and then clockwise, and then she was still. Clara was too dizzy to sit up, too dizzy to even speak. She simply watched as Rose sat down on the edge of the bed and slid across the sheets, taking her little foster sister into her arms without any chance to second guess.

"I'm so sorry, Clara." Rose whispered into her hair. She clutched her closely and Clara breathed in the scent of her shirt, the scent of Minnesota, the scent of David. Rose still had a home. Rose had two homes. Clara had…oh, they all knew. Clara had nothing. "I didn't mean to upset you. I'm just worried, is all. You know? You have that look in your eyes. The look you had when we picked you up from the hospital. You look so small to me and I'm afraid you're going to disappear." Rose paused, her words stuttering some as she fought back whatever emotion was trying to dominate her words. "I'm afraid you want to."

Clara thought of the apartment they lived in in the Bronx, of the dark subway rides and dinners of boxed mac and cheese and the dreamy _when I'm rich, I'm going to…_

What? Clara couldn't remember now. When she was rich she was going to do what?

She'd hit adulthood with crushing medical bills from her three week stay in the hospital, a poor life insurance claim that only just covered the cost of the funerals, no home, no family, and few friends. She worked so hard then, convinced that if she only worked hard enough and got enough money she'd be happy. That she could replace what she'd lost somehow with _things. _All the glittering things that she thought she wanted: the crystal chandeliers, the Chanel jackets, the emotional security of a substantial paycheck. But she had all of that and she was poorer than she'd ever been.

It accumulated slowly, building up like snowflakes amount to drifts. She opened her front door and collapsed underneath the weight of it.

"When I'm rich, I'm going to bury my husband." She told Rose. She found herself laughing, the force of it sending tears from her eyes. "When I'm rich, I'm going to bury my husband."

The words made no sense to Rose, but if she suspected something wasn't right with Clara, she didn't say. Clara gripped the material of her shirt in her hands and squeezed, thinking things that came and went with no sense. _David's got a lobster thing, Rose lives in Minnesota and not with me, Rose never belonged to me, nothing ever belonged to me, someone stole it all away. I let them take it. _

And then, finally: _if this is my best, what is my worst?_

* * *

His first lunch with Andrew Dalek was rushed and strange, but he left it feeling like they understood one other.

Dalek had a blunt outlook on life that the Doctor understood and a work ethic he respected. He seemed trustworthy in his transparency and didn't exude too much dominance, and all of that made him an ideal lunch partner. They talked about their investments mostly, and the few times they strayed off that topic, it was Dalek who was speaking of his personal life. He admitted personal tragedies that made the Doctor's throat thicken and ache, and by the second week of their acquaintanceship, the Doctor found himself beginning to talk about himself too. He talked about London generally, and then about the rocky time he was having as CEO. When Dalek admitted he'd never liked Clara Oswald to begin with, the Doctor wanted so much to believe it that he forced himself to. He ignored the voice inside his head that insisted that didn't seem quite right, that reminded him that he'd yet to meet someone who didn't like her. He wanted to believe that he'd found a friend in Dalek, a friend who was made from the same stuff he was, who could see past youthful beauty to dangerous souls. So he did.

The week of the annual dinner arrived far too quickly. Donna had to do three times the amount of work she normally did to keep everything on schedule, but by the time Friday arrived, everything was right on track. His speech writer had already prepared and left a polished speech for him to give at the start of the dinner, his blue suit was freshly dry cleaned and pressed, and his shoes were polished to the point of giving off a reflection. And true he felt terrible, with wobbly legs and a chastised heart, but he would make it through. He always did. As long as he was busy, he could forget. And he needed to forget.

Donna was so swamped that she was forced to get ready for the dinner while at work. The Doctor stopped dead in his tracks at the end of the day, staring as she twirled a strand of hair around the curling iron she had plugged up to the wall. He watched her hold it, humming underneath her breath, and then he watched her let up on the curling iron. The spring popped into place and there were memories stirring in him, memories of his fingers pulling back curls not unlike that-

She caught his movement from the corner of her eye as he moved quickly to his office.

"You look sharp," she complimented. Her voice was a bit curt, due to her extreme irritation with him shoving so much work onto _her _lap when he "had a more than capable COO", but he could tell it was sincere. He inclined his head.

"Thank you." He was halfway in his office when it occurred to him that maybe she deserved something back. She'd been put through the wringer this week. He looked back at her. "Erm, purple. It's a great color on you."

Donna beamed, but the sight of her curls pushed him back through his door. He shut it tightly like someone on the other side was aiming to hurt him.

The dinner was hosted in the ballroom of one of New York City's finest event locations and they'd spared no money. The tablecloths were starched white with Everest, Inc. embroidered in silver thread and many professional photographs of the world's best outdoor athletes using their products were framed in sterling silver on the wall. The stage ran the entire length of the far wall, the curtains a heavy red velvet that gave the impression that some sort of performance was about to begin. The guests were the richest, the food was the best, and he was certain they'd gain many new clients and sponsors from the night.

As the CEO, he had the seat closest to the stage. Each table seated eight, and only because there was no way around it, he was seated beside the COO with only one empty chair as a buffer. His plus one was no one, and so at least that earned him a bit of space from his COO, who hadn't said a word to him since that day she ran from his office. The day he found out his ex-wife died. Donna had informed her that she was no longer allowed to receive any updates, but she'd yet to say anything to him about it. And he watched her sometimes, questions burning hot on the roof of his mouth. There was such confusion, curiosity, and anger mingled together that he was never sure which to start with, so he said nothing. They said nothing. They, very easily, became nothing. Oddly, it didn't feel quite like he thought it would.

She arrived only minutes after him tonight, a sight in red satin. Her plus one was a blonde woman, almost as stunning in a pink gown, and they didn't force any awkward introductions. She immediately began walking around, checking that everything was in order, and when the guests arrived, he was too busy chatting to let her even cross his mind. It was welcomed, as her actions had shaken him up, and it hadn't been often that she wasn't on his mind. He hated her more for it.

The gap at their table was glaring. It was a strange circle: the Doctor, his empty space, Clara, the blonde woman, Jack, his partner Ianto, Rory, and his wife Amelia. The conversation was lively between Clara, Jack, and Rory, but this dinner wasn't really for them. It was for their guests. They all had work to do.

Once everyone arrived, the Doctor made his way to the podium on the stage. His speech was sitting there waiting for him, freshly printed and enlarged to the exact font sized he'd asked for. He lifted his eyes and stared out into the sea of people, thinking with a hint of something like pride that this was _his _corporation. And then he realized what most his speech was about.

In retrospect, he should have read the speech over first. He had faith in his speech writer (Rory's wife) and had assumed it'd just be another vanilla, boring affair, where he summarized the growth of the corporation and toasted to another great year. But of course it wasn't. He'd forgotten the tragedy that had led him to that stage.

The silence was prickling. When the projector clicked on, he turned around briefly, caught off guard to find himself staring at a collage of pictures of the late John Smith. It was the first annual dinner without him. And the Doctor was the last person on the earth qualified to speak of him.

He couldn't look at his table. He was too ashamed to find Clara's eyes, and he wasn't sure why that was. Perhaps because he knew, if she'd stood on a stage and started robotically reading off words someone else had written about _his _deceased ex-wife, he'd want her dead.

He cleared his throat and he lacked his usual nerve. He lacked his usual everything and had for a while now.

"It is with a conflicted heart that I speak with you all tonight," he began. His voice rang out clear and true, but his eyes wouldn't lift from the paper. He knew somewhere his speech teacher was cringing. "I am overjoyed at how far our corporation has come in the past few months and I feel honored to be leading it. Running a corporation has always been my dream since I was a young boy, and I hope I'm making my younger self proud." Each word he read had him blushing and simultaneously plotting Amelia's departure from the company. (But there was a terrible reflective truth to it too, one that made his palms sweat anxiously).

He cleared his throat again and risked a glance up, but the eyes were too many. He continued. "However, it would be foolish of me to speak of the present and the future without acknowledging the successes of the past. Dr. John Smith was a—a caring and innovative team player. He raised the corporation's profits tenfold in the too few years he was with us. The way in which he ran his business was close to the way in which he ran his heart: intimately, compassionately, and without limits."

The Doctor stopped speaking, taking a moment to scan over the words before he read them, because with each word he said he felt worse and worse. His skin was crawling, his body revolting against the sheer cruelty of the things he was saying. Knowing the man's widow was in the audience. Knowing he'd done anything and everything he could to make her work life a living hell. Standing on stage, under the scrutiny of thousands of eyes, it was easy to feel guilty.

_I thank John Smith for all his contributions and I hope that, wherever he is, he's taking a much deserved vacation. As always, a world of thanks to him for leaving behind my greatest asset—Ms. Clara Oswald, COO and friend. Without her—_

He looked up. Those words he couldn't (and he wouldn't) say. And it was because he wasn't cruel enough.

"He is greatly missed." The Doctor found himself saying instead. He looked away from the speech for good. "By so many and so much." The back of his throat burned. The skin on his neck itched. He wanted to run somewhere, but he didn't know where. He could feel their eyes on his skin. "This dinner is in memory of John Smith. Thank you."

He couldn't get off the stage quickly enough. When he sat back down, sweat cooling on the back of his neck and his armpits damp, he was at first relieved when he saw Clara rising from her chair. Maybe she was leaving. Maybe he wouldn't have to deal with this anymore. But then she started making her way to the stage.

"The COO gives a speech?" He hissed to Amelia, who was sitting to his left. Amelia gave him an odd look and a curt nod, his butchering of her speech not overlooked. He turned his focus back to the stage.

It was odd to see her up there with the collage right behind her. She was in a couple of them, always standing the correct and polite distance away from John, all except for one. It was tucked in the bottom left corner, right above the podium, and he had his arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders. Truthfully, they were smiling like no one in the world had ever been happier than them. Even the Doctor could see it.

Clara was immediately and effortlessly more charming in her first seconds on stage than he'd managed during his entire speech. She approached the podium only to find herself a few inches too short to reach the microphone, even when she angled it down. She lifted high up onto her tip toes so she could speak into it.

"Looks like they forgot my personal step stool," she teased. When someone quickly carried one out from behind stage—much to the audience's amusement—she quickly stepped up onto it and offered them all a bright smile. "Ah! So that's what it's like this high up."

The Doctor looked around as everyone laughed, their eyes trained to her with a smile. She was beloved here. He wondered if she knew that.

Of course, her bubbly personality could only carry her so far. She smiled for a few moments and then he spotted her swallowing hard, her hands shaking a bit as she rested them on top of the podium. She had no speech prepared. She had no notecards. And yet it seemed that to her the scariest thing was the collage behind her. She didn't even turn her head to shake the loose pieces of hair back that'd fallen into her face from her updo, as if she might catch a glimpse of it from the corner of her eye if she did. He glanced around, but no one else seemed to see what he did. No one else saw the heavy fractures running up and down her body.

"I didn't want to speak today, to be honest." She finally began. Her voice was teetering. "And trust me—I'm not up here because I had a change of heart and decided to be brave. I was _absolutely_ going to back out, only I waited too long, so here I am."

The laughter was less amused and gentler this time. The audience was going easy on her. Watching her up there, her eyes sparkling behind what must have been a film of unshed tears, her hair shining and revealing a multitude of shades of brown and red, her dress smoothing perfectly over her skin—he understood why they were.

"John and I were always a source of gossip," she started carefully. The Doctor spotted Jack and Rory shoot each other startled looks, quickly turning their eyes back up to Clara. "I know a lot of people thought I only got the job because of my relationship with him. And well, I did. So you were all right about that."

Jack leaned halfway across the table towards Rory, his face contorted.

"_What the hell is she doing_?" He hissed at him. "_Is she drunk?" _Rory gave a slightly frantic shrug.

"But there was more to it. I got the job because of the way we worked together, and I think it's something you had to see to understand. John was my counterpart. And I told myself that when I got up here today, I'd talk about his business skills and his business skills only, but I can't do that. Because he would have hated it. He would have hated me for it. I didn't say anything at his funeral. I let them bury him without saying a word, all because I'd been so trained to keeping it all a secret, for fear of losing it all. He was my husband and I didn't say a thing."

The sound of an entire audience gasping and murmuring was just as annoying in reality as it was in TV dramas. The Doctor felt the need to knead at his forehead. What the fuck was she doing indeed.

"And I know this isn't really a funeral service, but it is his dinner, as our new CEO pointed out," the Doctor looked up quickly at that, his eyebrows rising in surprise. Clara wasn't looking towards him though. "So I wanted to say something about him. Just something small that everyone can have, because he was more than just a CEO. He was a man, and a damn good one at that."

When the Doctor scanned his table again, he was surprised to see that both Rory and Rose were crying. He had a hard time imagining anyone crying if he'd been the CEO that died. Would they even throw a dinner for him? Suddenly, he doubted it. And he tried to tell himself that he didn't care, but he wondered for a moment if he had it all twisted.

Clara lifted up her finger. "We got into one—one fight. In our entire six year relationship. And it was over something so stupid. Sometimes I still think about it and I wish I could go back and just…erase it. Because I didn't know then that our time was running out. John was so eager to please, but he was also ruthlessly stubborn when it came to things he was passionate about, and he lost it over a painting. Can you believe that? We worked together for six years, professionally and intimately, and we worked out huge problems that would have made the best of partners split with no sweat—and our one fight was over a _painting. _It was this…eclectic thing, a painting of an old royal blue phone box from Britain. John had visited there as a kid and he'd seen it in this tea shop. And it wasn't too bad in theory, of course, but our living room was orange. And I don't mean melon-orange, the kind your grandma paints her kitchen. It was electric orange."

The Doctor glanced around him when she paused, a bit stunned (but not as much as he should have been) to see everyone watching her attentively, drinking in every word that left her full lips. And he understood what was different between them. She was real and he was not, even as she hid a huge secret and he made his faults known. He wondered how that worked.

"The two colors looked…God, I can't even explain how tacky they looked together. It was truly atrocious. And looking back, I feel sick, because why didn't I just let him put the painting up? It wouldn't have hurt anything. It was just a _painting_. And we screamed over this painting for a good hour, slinging awful words at each other—and it of course got out of hand and turned into a fight of who loves who more, who sacrifices the most, and on and on it went. We said things that we didn't even feel because we were so mad. So he stormed from the house, which absolutely destroyed me, and he lied and said he'd be back in the morning, but he wasn't, and I was of course hysterical. I hung his painting up on the wall and I called his phone at least a dozen times. I called the police and the neighbors and I was certain something _terrible _had happened to him. I went out myself and searched all of his favorite places for him, and when I got home hours later, the idiot was standing in our living room." Clara paused, the corners of her mouth quirking up. "Our _cream _living room."

The audience laughed a bit at that, watching Clara with that same soft look. She shook her head in tired amusement.

"And it—that was John Smith. In his anger, in his injury, he left and he didn't decide to stay gone. He came home and painted over electric orange with _cream_—which is no easy feat if you know anything about painting walls- and the first thing he said to me when I walked through the door was: _you put my painting up._ And he said it with this huge, soft smile…like nothing had happened. Like we hadn't been so nasty to each other. And I loved him. With everything I had, constantly, forever. I lost something integral that day, but you know, standing up here tonight, I think we all agree that our company lost something integral too."

She took a deep breath, the kind that expanded out her stomach and made her appear taller for just a second. And then she smiled.

"Thank you all for coming to his dinner and paying tribute to our corporation and my late husband. He would have loved it. He loved all of you. I hope you enjoy your meal."

The applause was more a beacon of support than a signal of enjoyment and the Doctor was certain the pictures were shaking on the walls. He was like everyone else: he couldn't take his eyes from her as she walked back to her seat and sat down. He saw the blonde woman lean over and take her hand, holding tight to it. And Clara shut her eyes.

* * *

He ordered the poached salmon, but he didn't eat much of it. Clara ordered the same and she didn't even touch her fork. Or her glass of wine. Or her water.

He listened to the easy conversation that fell over their table, not adding input unless directly spoken to, discreetly watching and trying to make sense of everyone. Halfway through he realized the blonde woman was Clara's sister, although his knowledge of genetics disagreed with that.

He was trying hard to not cause any problems, partly from exhaustion and partly from the uneasiness that came from his uncertainty about Clara, but it happened without him even trying.

"You butchered my speech." Amelia accused him loudly. She'd had five glasses of wine, so he supposed it wasn't really her fault, but he hated it all the same.

"You butchered it all on your own. It was awful." The Doctor accused. He took a long gulp of _his _wine, foreseeing the need for more alcohol in his immediate future.

Amelia glowered darkly, her fingers curling tightly around the stem of her wine glass. He thought she might break it.

"I did not. I gave it life, a heart. I tried to make you sound relatable and kind. You managed to get up there and sound just like a machine." She said honestly.

She wasn't _really _employed by Everest and therefore seemed to take that as an invitation to say whatever she felt. Rory floundered, tugging gently on his wife's arm to shush her.

"Sorry, sir, she's drunk." Rory defended quickly.

"And honest!" Amy tagged on. She hiccupped and then she glanced towards Clara, who was staring unseeingly at her full wine glass. "What's your problem with Clara, anyway? Why cut the bit about her? You didn't know John, okay, whatever, sure, whoopity-fucking-do. But you're supposed to say something nice about your COO. It's the _rules_."

He and Clara met eyes quickly. The glance was hot with tense grudges, but for once, their hearts were not in it. Perhaps because people with large parts of their hearts were now in the ground.

"Now is not the time to discuss this, Amelia." The Doctor said lowly.

Amy rolled her eyes. "Now's the _best _time. Isn't it, Rory? The best time. Right now. So tell me, Doctor. Why didn't you say Clara was the greatest asset that John left behind?"

He could see Clara's fidgeting growing from the corner of his eye. He looked back at Amy.

"Because it isn't true." He said honestly.

When Clara rose abruptly from the table, he knew what everyone else didn't, somehow. That it was Amy's words that had hurt her more than his. He thought the fact that John left her behind must have hurt her worse than any of his opinions ever could.

Rose stood up to follow her, but before she did, she turned and looked at the Doctor. Her expression was one of offended surprise, like he'd just dared to do something to cross her.

"You upset my sister." She stated. She stared at him, her lips parted. She narrowed her eyes ever so slightly. "No one upsets my sister."

It was a threat, but it wasn't a very good one. He watched her turn and hurry on after her, his stomach sick. He cursed underneath his breath and spent the rest of the night kneading the back of his neck and drinking wine.

* * *

If the after party wasn't necessary, he wouldn't have stayed.

Half of the tables were moved away to clear space in the ballroom for dancing, a bar was opened, and a DJ set up his things on the stage they'd just held a memorial service on. The music was pounding hard in his chest as he sat in the back corner, crossly watching everyone dancing. He only got up to socialize when he had to.

It wasn't long before he had a visitor. Andrew Dalek sat down in the chair beside him, tipping his beer towards the party.

"Businessmen. Always the biggest partiers." He observed. He nodded towards the Doctor. "Good speech. Strong. Your COO's was a bit stuffy."

The Doctor looked at him differently than he normally did this time, because of all the negative adjectives he would have used to describe Clara's speech, _stuffy _wouldn't have been one of them. He suddenly wondered if Dalek had even heard it at all or if he was just saying what he thought the Doctor wanted to hear.

They chatted idly about a business deal, but when Dalek's beer was gone, he was weaving his way back to the bar.

The Doctor made his way into the crowd of people about twenty minutes later because the CEO of Urban Outfitters wanted to talk to him, but it ended up being a proposal for a date, so he ended the conversation as quickly as possible. Jack made him jump when he suddenly appeared, settling his hand on his shoulder.

"How's it going?" He called loudly.

The Doctor shrugged. "Not the biggest fan of this part."

Jack shrugged at that. He seemed to be lacking his usual spunk and every few moments he'd turn and glance in the opposite direction, his teeth biting into his lower lip. The Doctor followed his gaze the third time he did it, surprised to find where it led to.

Jack looked back at him.

"I'm just watching." He explained. He glanced back and visibly tensed when the man chatting up Clara reached over and ran a hand down her slick side, fingers digging possessively into the side of her hip. And maybe it was because he was standing so close to Jack and his distress was rubbing off, but the Doctor felt something tense up inside of him at the sight.

Jack looked back at the Doctor, sensing the thought that crossed his mind the moment it did.

"It's not like that." He hurriedly explained. "I'm just very protective over Clara. She's vulnerable right now and this kind of company worries me."

The words left his mouth without much thought.

"I don't think she needs a babysitter." He said sourly.

Jack's head swiveled back around immediately, his eyebrows pursing down. For the first time, Jack looked genuinely _angry. _

"You don't have any idea what she needs." Jack said coldly. "You don't even know her."

He found himself opening his mouth to protest, but whatever words he would have said were lost to him. Because Jack was right. He had no idea who she was beyond the angry assumptions he made about her every day.

He retreated to the corner after that. He watched as people left—sometime during the night Clara's sister left, and then Jack (stumbling out with his mouth locked on Ianto's and his hand gripping some random woman's), and then Rory and Amy. Eventually it was just a few of the lower down employees, him and Clara, and all their guests. There were still far too many people for his liking.

At eleven the party was still loud and pulsing. He walked to the bar to get a glass of water, surprised to see Clara sitting in the corner, lips on the rim of a shot glass. It was odd only because he'd seen her push away alcohol the entire night. She hadn't touched her wine at dinner and, as far as he knew, she'd been drinkless the entire party. He waited for his water and watched her carefully, hoping she wouldn't look up and catch him. It was the man she was sitting beside that got his attention more than anything else. It was the CEO of Calvin Klein and the Doctor was sure he wasn't tracing his fingers up her dress to get underwear inspiration.

At first his stomach knotted again, in that same tense way it had before, but then he realized it was more than that. He felt uneasy because, as he studied her face, he got the impression she didn't even realize his hand was plotting its way up her dress. She was leaning slightly into his side, eyelids heavy, breaths weak, and the bad feeling grew almost to paranoia.

Perhaps it was the values his mother had worked so hard to instill (if someone helps you, you help them back) that had him walking over, fists clenched and anger crawling up his throat. He stopped in front of them, unsure why he was so furious, just knowing that he suddenly wanted to grab the CEO by the collar and toss him out of the room.

"As I was saying, we've got a position opening up for COO, and I think—"

The man's words were low and sticky. The Doctor experienced a nasty surge of possessiveness, one he couldn't (and wouldn't) define.

"She's already got a job." He said.

Both of them glanced up, the CEO's with an irritated expression at the obvious cockblock and Clara with an almost absent one. Something wasn't right and he could sense it sharply in the air now. It had him on edge, jittery, like he'd had too much to drink himself.

"Clara," he began, and her name fell oddly from his lips when he wasn't saying it mockingly, "could I speak with you for a moment?"

He expected her to tell him to fuck off. He expected her to turn to the CEO and say "yes, I'd love to join your team". So it frightened him more than anything when she extended a meek hand immediately.

He looked at it uneasily for a moment, his skin crawling at the very idea, but then he leaned forward and took it. He squeezed her fingers and pulled, helping her to her feet. She didn't say a word as he slowly pulled them away, and he didn't either. It wasn't until they were away from the CEO that she began gasping.

"I need the—bathroom," she told him, her eyes wild. She was quivering like a frightened animal, and when he slid his hand up just enough to feel the fluttering of her pulse, he was shocked to find it racing like she was running full speed.

"Okay." He said, mostly because he was horrified of the idea that she might die right here, and who'd be their number one suspect if something like that happened?

He steeled himself for it and then looped an arm around her waist, but it was difficult with her satin gown. He tried to walk forward, but his hand lacked the proper grip and it slid up without his permission, grazing the underside of her breast. And the worst thing was that she didn't even notice at all.

That locked something into place inside of him. He reached over and curled his fingers around the side of her waist for purchase and began hurrying them through the crowd towards the women's toilets, stepping through the door without even thinking about it. Once they were in the bathroom, she jerked away from him and staggered towards a stall. He hovered back uneasily as she fell to her knees on the tile and immediately shoved her index and middle finger down her throat, enticing the worst gagging sounds he'd ever heard. He heard her gasping when it didn't work and then she tried again, and again, until finally he heard the sound of her retching.

He wasn't sure what to do or what to say. He stepped to the right so her back was in view, and then he stepped closer out of instinctive curiosity, staring at something he hadn't expected to see. The right sleeve of her dress had slide down her arm, revealing the start of a deep, horrid scar between her shoulder blades.

He'd only stared at it for maybe a moment before she felt his eyes. She sat back and then reached up weakly, her hands shaking worse than he'd ever seen, and dragged the sleeve back up over her. Like a forgotten secret, it was hidden away, leaving him to focus on the biggest issue.

"What the fuck?" He finally said. His words were angry even though his anger was suspended somewhere above him. "What the _fuck, _Oswald?"

Clara was still sitting on the floor, her back to him, her breaths coming quickly. He had just made up his mind to flee, to escape the mess that she was, when she spoke up.

"It's not that." She said weakly. She was so beaten down that she didn't even try to justify or explain anything. She offered him the basic facts. "I've been taking John's hydromorphone. You're not…supposed to drink alcohol with it. I thought that I...wanted…"

She stopped and didn't clarify, didn't explain what exactly she wanted, but it didn't take the Doctor much to understand the gist of what had just happened. She wouldn't say it, but it was staring him in the face. She had tried to kill herself. Suddenly her words on the stage were colder, darker, and he found it horrifying when he thought of everyone's naive, contented laughter.

"You're a fucking mess," he told her uneasily. His own hands were shaking and he tucked them into his pockets. He looked away from her. "A goddamned mess. You need to be somewhere. Somewhere where they can help you."

He heard her wince slightly as she set her forearms on the toilet seat, pushing on it to lift herself up into a straighter sitting position. She turned her head and gazed at him blurrily.

"And you're not?" She finally said. She lifted a hand and rubbed her face, her words unwell. _She _was unwell. "You look just as bad as me all the time."

The answer was quick. "I'm not a fucking drug addict."

"We're all addicted to something. Yours is control." She shot right back.

He realized now might be the only time he could get himself to ask it, because now was the only time she was going to be more vulnerable than the topic made him feel. He stared hard at her.

"Why were you fixing my mistakes?"

She didn't lift her head. She was breathing rapidly, as if against nausea.

"Because it's my job to," she bit out impatiently.

He wouldn't let it go that easily. "You were dismissed from that duty. Why use your own time to do that? And then not even…tell me? What are you planning?"

She lifted her head, her eyes filled with disbelief.

"Tell you?!" She demanded with a shaky bark of laughter. "What, so you could scream at me and ban me from helping ever again? I knew if I asked your permission to help you'd never let me. So I just did it. And I'm not planning anything. I was just helping, okay? God damn, you make everything so _nasty_. Why can't it just be like that?"

"Because the world isn't like that!" He snapped in frustration. "No one does things just to help. It's always because they're trying to get something for themselves."

She shook her head, and for a moment, he saw a glimpse in his mind of the beginnings of that scar. But then she rubbed her eyes and it was gone.

"You know, it actually makes me sad that you think that." She admitted. She met his eyes after that, hers red-rimmed. She looked so bad that he wanted to call for an ambulance. "I saw you crying over your wife. Okay? I saw it and I know what that feels like. I know how—crushing it is. I know how it destroys you and I know how hard it is to do even the most basic of things. I just wanted to help."

He stared at her eyes for a long, tense moment. He looked down at the tiles.

"I don't believe you." He said angrily. He felt furious at her for trying this act on him. He hated that she wasn't screaming at him and being mean. He wanted her to make him hate her so he felt justified to do so. "You're trying to become CEO yourself. You're trying to do something."

Clara's laugh was full of bitter surrender.

"Think whatever you want, Doctor." She finally said tiredly. "You can spend months watching over your shoulder for a villain that doesn't even exist if you want. But I'm not trying to do anything. I was just trying to help someone who went through something I did too."

He watched as she reached up and grabbed the toilet paper dispenser, slowly and painstakingly pulling herself to her feet. He wasn't sure what was wrong with her and he felt that same feeling in his chest he'd felt before, the feeling akin to his muscles knitting together with anxiety.

"I'm phoning for an ambulance." He said gruffly.

Her head flew to him, her eyes wide.

"No, don't," she said. "I'll be fine. I threw it up almost immediately. It might not have killed me anyway. Don't call an ambulance."

He shook his head, his fingers touching the phone in his pocket. "If you die in here, the last thing people saw was me helping you in. I'll get blamed for it."

She was frustrated. "I'm not going to die in here!"

But right as she said it, she stumbled slightly, her head knocking hard into the stall wall. She grimaced.

"They can't refuse you treatment or tell on you." He said impatiently. "But you're unwell."

Clara set her hands on her hip bones and doubled over, her breaths coming erratically.

"If you want to make sure you don't get blamed for my murder, help me get out front so I can get a cab back to the office," she finally said. It seemed to take all her strength to force the words from her lips. It was obvious he was the last person she'd want helping her anywhere, but Jack and Rory were gone. And he was certain she'd rather him than the CEO of Calvin Klein. At least she knew the Doctor wanted to be as far from her as possible, not as close.

"Where will you go after that?" He demanded. "If people see me walking you outside and then you die on the curb waiting, I'm still in the same boat."

"Oh for Christ's sake—then drive me to the office! Wait with me while I hail a cab! I don't care!" She snapped. "Just…I need to get to my office."

When he met her eyes, she seemed to be debating something. When her eyes met his, she gave in.

"Please."

She was softer than he'd imagined, gentler—her brows knit together and a sickly sheen of sweat on her face. And for a moment he realized just how _small _she really was. She could be as bitchy as she liked, but really she was just a person. As easy to die as anyone (as River, as John, as his parents).

He swallowed hard against his pent up anger towards her and all the dislike he had stored up.

He extended his hand. "I'll help you, and then we're even. You helped me and I help you and then this can be over with."

Something passed over her eyes—dark and soaking—but it was gone a minute later. She nodded firmly and then he walked over, resuming the previous position they were in.

She was able to almost walk by herself to his car and she was fine the ride to the office, but by the time they parked, she was having difficulties getting out the car. By the time they got to floor eleven she was quivering again. He was starting to realize it was withdrawal more than anything. He watched her stumble towards her office door, his mind quick to replay the image of her slamming her head against the stall wall, and he cursed silently. He hurried over just as she began tilting towards the floor. His arm looped around her waist in one quick movement, catching her right before she slammed hard into the ground, and when he looked down at her hazy eyes, they were filled with horror.

She cringed out his arms violently, her arm accidentally smacking him in the face as she did. Her shaking seemed more out of distress now than withdrawal.

"Don't catch me!" She gasped out, her voice high and pinched. She looked away from him, her shoulders pushed forward. He gaped at her as she cowered slightly, like he'd just slapped her across the face.

He was edging towards her, confused and thinking the ambulance was a good idea once more, when he heard another voice.

"Put a group of businessmen in a room with free alcohol and it's always the same outcome. You're all so predictable."

The Doctor looked up slowly, turning his attention from Clara to the dark room behind him. He supposed he should have felt surprised when he saw Andrew Dalek, but oddly, he didn't. There was a part of him that knew it was coming. He must have known John Smith was right all along, but he'd been so bitter and angry that he didn't want to admit it. Perhaps Clara was right. Perhaps control was his addiction.

Dalek's voice was clinical, calm. The whites of his eyes were bright like skeletal remains and he was smiling.

"It's Friday. The hour is 11:58. No one will be in the building until Monday morning around 7:15. Everyone at the party assumes you two have pissed off together. Your sister is leaving for Maryland in the morning and will be all-too understanding when she gets your note about going home with Jack. I've got people guarding the stairwells and the power has been cut. And you're going to listen to exactly what I say."


	5. Black Tables

**A/n: **Quick update to show my never-ending gratitude for all the support- thank you!

* * *

If the Doctor thought Clara was resistant and apathetic to his threats, it was nothing compared to the way she answered Dalek's.

It was a quick scoff on her part—sweaty face gleaming in the dim lighting from the emergency lights, face compressed with annoyance—and one step forward towards her office. Not enough at all to warrant it. But that didn't matter to anyone. Dalek's eyes flashed with echoing rage at Clara's response, and then he had her up against the wall in what felt like no time at all, both his hands pressing hard into her shoulders as he pinned her in place. His face was so close to hers that their noses were brushing and the Doctor felt his muscles tighten with distress at the expression on Clara's face. She was trying so hard to move her face back from his that her chin was almost tucked down to her neck, but the man got closer still, his expression warped with fury. Her eyes were wide and hollow with fear. For a moment he imagined saying what he often felt he'd want to say if something like this ever happened: _I don't care what you do to her. I don't care. I don't care at all. _

But he was not as callous as he'd hoped when faced with actual suffering, no matter how much he was certain he despised the person.

"Stop," he said quickly, sternly. "Stop. You don't have to do that. We're listening."

The man curled his fingers beneath the fabric on Clara's shoulder, nails tucking hard into her skin. She didn't cry out, but the Doctor saw her eyes shift quickly to his, lips parted like she wanted to yell.

Dalek leaned in closer, almost like he was going to kiss her. His words were low and threatening. His breath stirred the pieces of hair that had fallen out of Clara's updo.

"You'd better be."

He let go of her all at once and walked back casually, leaving her quivering against the wall. The Doctor stared at her for a beat and then clenched his jaw. All she'd done was touched her office door; she hadn't even tried to run. If he'd reacted like that to such a small motion, what else might he do?

He could feel Dalek's eyes on his back as he began walking over to Clara's side, each step measured like he understood exactly what he was getting them into by that small action. But he didn't. He just knew he was angry. He understood the instinct to lash out at Clara in the heat of the moment, but never when she was this vulnerable. Never that violently.

He stood beside her, close enough that he could feel the satin of her dress brush against his arm each time she shook. She was sick and she needed help. He looked to her from the corner of his eye, eying the way she was cowered back, knees quaking so much he wondered how she was staying upright. He suddenly thought to the way she'd jerked so violently away from him that day he'd touched her shoulder during their mixed up board meeting, and he wondered if someone had hurt her before.

"She's not well," he finally spoke up, turning his eyes back to Dalek. He was watching them with a quiet, intent stare, not unlike the look an animal might give its prey right before pouncing. The Doctor's heart was pounding with anxiety. "Look at her. She's sick, really sick. Let me ring an ambulance; we can talk about whatever you'd like. Just you and me."

Dalek didn't move. He didn't even blink.

"I don't recall you ever caring about Ms. Oswald's state before." He said slowly. He turned his head toward the side just barely, rusty gold hair brushing his shoulder. "In fact, I remember you being downright hateful."

The words swelled and bulged in his mouth, impeded by his closed lips. _That was when I thought she wanted to take the only thing I had left away from me. She helped me and she didn't ask for anything in return—as least not yet—and people don't do that. I am scared of that. I am a little scared of her, because I don't understand, and I might hate her for confusing me and challenging me, but I don't want this. I don't want her to _die _up here. _

Instead, he found himself saying the words he'd thought when he saw her hunched over on the bathroom tile, scarred back trembling. The words he'd hadn't realized until he'd seen her as vulnerable as she continuously made him feel.

"She's a person." He said slowly, mindful to keep a watch on Dalek's expressions. He didn't want to set him off again. "She's just a person. She's not an…obstacle. This has nothing to do with professional quarrels. This is her _life_."

_A _fucked up_ person_, his mind added. But a person. And maybe fucked up people needed even more care. She didn't need to die up here; she needed counseling. She needed help.

Dalek couldn't have cared less. It was obvious when the Doctor looked to his bored expression.

"The benefit of being _just a person_ is the ease with which you can be disposed of."

That was the way it was going to go, then. That was the way and that was that. The Doctor looked sideways at Clara, her teeth grit against whatever pain was coursing through her, and he wasn't sure why he did it. But he slid over closer to her, so their sides were pressed together, and as he did so he got a brief memory of a photograph he'd seen when he was younger. Two strangers on a battlefield, both with fatal wounds, their arms around each other in their final moments. Anyone's your friend if you're lying on a battlefield together.

"We're still listening." The Doctor said.

Dalek walked forward and opened Clara's office, nodding at them to follow. The Doctor gripped Clara's side again and helped pull her shivering body through the doorway, his own legs weaker than normal as his mind churned out awful outcome after awful outcome. He suddenly thought it likely that they wouldn't walk out of this. He wondered if Clara would even care.

He started towards the red sofa near the curtained windows, but Dalek slammed his hand hard against the wall, drawing their attention to him. He shook his head once, firmly.

The Doctor's anger lit quickly, like a match in a puddle of gasoline.

"She's bloody sick!" He snapped loudly. "She can hardly stand! Let her sit down for fuck's sake!"

Dalek was unmoved.

"I want to see how long she can manage to stand upright on her own." He ordered. "Let's test her stamina."

The words made the hairs on the back of the Doctor's neck rise, and even though he knew that was Dalek's way of telling him to step away from her, he didn't do it. She wasn't even thirty yet. He'd spent so long treating her like shit, and it wasn't until he was seeing someone _else _do it that he realized how unwarranted it was. And maybe he'd had reasons when he'd done it; maybe the words he'd screamed at her were equal to the words she'd screamed at him, but right now he couldn't remember. Right now she was just a woman and he was just a man and nothing could protect them: not money, not power, not hatred. And certainly not control.

Dalek took one slow step towards them.

"Get _away_ from her," he drew out dangerously.

The Doctor slid his hand off her waist and took a few steps back, watching Dalek and waiting until he nodded. He stopped and watched tersely as Dalek walked over to that same sofa he'd just tried to lead Clara to and collapsed down onto it, his arms outstretched behind his head. And as he sat, Clara swayed, the motion reminding the Doctor suddenly of a leaf about to twist off a branch in autumn. He didn't think she'd be upright for much longer, but he couldn't do anything else. With her standing far away, it felt like they were in separate spheres of reality.

His skin prickled when Dalek's eyes landed on Clara, but he didn't say anything. He wouldn't die for her. He didn't think she deserved to die, he would try to stop it if he could, but not at his own expense. Their score was evened and he didn't owe her anything anymore, especially not his life.

"Your dead husband was clever." Is what Dalek started with, and the Doctor was sure his intent had been to hurt Clara. She averted her eyes predictably, her breath stuttering. "The one time I tried to make a deal with him, he told me my finances were strange and that Everest wanted nothing to do with me."

Clara was looking up at him from underneath her eyelashes, her teeth still gritted. The Doctor knew, had she been in a better state, she would have been flying at him.

"Here's what happens now, and I want you two to listen very closely, because I won't be happy if I have to repeat myself." Dalek began. He leaned forward and lowered his arms, resting his hands calmly in his lap instead. "I will make you each one deal and one deal only. There will be no bargaining and there will be no questions. What I explain is all you get. Understood?"

The Doctor and Clara both nodded after a heavy pause.

Dalek's words were bursting with pride. He stretched his legs out casually and leaned back, like he was settling down to hear a good story himself. It was only his threat of having other armed men around that kept the Doctor from lunging at him.

"Every five years, my business associates and I choose a corporation." Dalek began. "We always choose a fairly wealthy one—_fairly_. Never large enough to be on anyone's radar so to speak and never small enough to risk bankruptcy. We handpick them from different countries each time, that way they're spread out over a map as well as over time. No one suspects a thing. Tonight I'm making you each the same deals I've made many a CEO and COO, and the outcome depends on your answers. You can be another CEO who is found hanging from the ceiling in his office, or you can do exactly as I ask with no betrayals."

The Doctor felt Clara's eyes on him briefly, and when he glanced back, he saw the question in her eyes. They'd never gotten the chance to work together as a team, but suddenly it didn't matter. He understood what she was asking just from the slight edge in her eyes. _Plan?_

His jaw worked uneasily and she must have understood, because she glanced back down at the floor quickly, her hand rising to press shakily to her face. There was no plan.

"First up, our CEO. Cocky man, aren't you? Never would have made it this far if you weren't so self-assured of your power." Dalek began. His voice was light, conversational. Like he wasn't threatening their lives. He met the Doctor's eyes. "What I want is this: every year, I want forty-one percent of your corporation's profits. They will be delivered to my account in India by the exact date I specify and they will not be late. You are not to report or mention the transactions to _anyone—_save Ms. Oswald, of course. If I find out you've approached anyone about it, you will die. I will not tell you how. No one will care and no one will suspect a thing. We're careful, Doctor Smith. You know we are; I can see it in your eyes. We'd have to be if conspiracy theorists haven't even caught up yet." Dalek laughed almost mockingly, his eyes alight with victory. "Think about it. I've got something to discuss with Ms. Oswald. Listen in if you'd like, you'll find it concerns you."

The Doctor watched as Dalek turned his full attention to Clara, who was doubled over at the waist, her arms wrapped tightly around her stomach. The Doctor watched the sharp rising and falling of her back as she panted against her nausea, suddenly sure she wasn't going to be giving Dalek the attention he craved.

Unfortunately, he seemed to realize that too.

"Stand up straight. Shoulders back. Now." He ordered.

Clara let out a shaky sound that might have been a sob, but when she pushed herself up, her eyes were dry and her face was set. The Doctor watched the muscles in her stomach shifting beneath her gown in her effort to stay upright.

"And to the lady of the house, I offer this: if the CEO takes the deal, you are bound under the same oath of silence. I will leave you alone as long as you adhere to it. But in the event that he refuses the deal, I extend this opportunity: after I kill him, I will let you live, only if you agree to continue paying out the funds secretly underneath whomever replaces him. How you do that is your own problem."

Dalek's face suddenly brightened with an odd smile and he clapped his hands together, peering back and forth at their faces.

"Well? What will it be?" He questioned.

Forty-one percent was a lot. Not enough to bankrupt them, but enough to cause considerable impact. But as the Doctor looked at him, his anger twisting tight around his gut, he realized the problem wasn't even the finances. The problem wasn't that he didn't want to give up the money. The problem was that the man was telling him he had to. He had no right to claim anything as his, especially not their money or their lives. And the Doctor was senseless.

"No." He said, clearly and lowly.

Dalek's eyebrows rose, his back tensing. It hadn't been the answer he was expecting. He stared carefully at the Doctor as his mouth twisted with disgust.

"Is that your final answer?" He asked him.

The Doctor saw Clara shifting towards him from the corner of his eye, but he ignored her. He nodded his head once and Dalek immediately looked towards Clara. She stopped her movement immediately, still underneath his stare like a deer in headlights.

"And your answer?" He pressed.

The Doctor shut his eyes and waited for it. He knew it was coming, because he could hear echoing memories of all the awful things they'd said to each other. He heard his own voice taunting her for looking at pictures of her dead husband, he saw himself biting back each time she snapped. Who would have thought his own cruelty would ever come back to him. He'd long given up on the idea of karma.

"No."

They both looked right at her the minute the word left her lips, weaved with pain and anger. She was stooped over again, palms pressed to her thighs, head upturned as she glared hard into Dalek's eyes.

He was having a hard time processing it too.

"I'll remind you only once, Ms. Oswald, that your failure to comply will result in your death." Dalek reminded her. And then he added something on, almost as an afterthought. "And I'm not promising a pleasant one. At least not for you."

The Doctor didn't take his eyes off her now. He watched the emotions playing out on her face—fear, uncertainty, fury.

"No." She repeated. It was softer this time, folded over, because she understood fully what she was saying and what would happen because of it. Her eyes were swimming in tears and the Doctor was certain her shaking was from fear more than sickness now. She shook her head, more pieces of hair falling from her updo. "My answer is no. And you know what else?"

Dalek's chest was expanding rapidly, the only sign of his anger. His fists curled up tightly.

"What?" He bit out.

Clara's eyes never left Dalek, and for once, the Doctor was on her side. He was willing her not to back down, for her to be as bitchy as she possibly could. They were both miserable and they had nothing much to lose. And in that moment, it was a blessing.

"You can go fuck yourself."

The Doctor's heart swelled with an intense feeling of camaraderie as the words jumped from Clara's lips, full to bursting with hatred. And he understood her reasons instantly without her having to tell him. She was refusing because, like him, she was denying to be locked away. She wouldn't live the rest of her life a prisoner. They were both already doing that, chained behind the ghosts of their lost lovers, and one prison was plenty.

Dalek rose slowly from the sofa. He advanced towards her, hands extending as if to grab, and it was automatic.

"Or you could go fuck your mum. But you've probably already done that."

Dalek stopped in his tracks, head swiveling to find the Doctor's impassive face. The Doctor's eyes drifted quickly to Clara's as Dalek turned to him instead, and the barely audible exhalation of relief she gave knocked something around in his heart.

Dalek stopped only a few inches from the Doctor, his face reddening with anger.

"Chemical company in South America. 1995. One of my hired guns followed the CEO home and hid in her cellar. He sat right below the pipes and he could hear the moment the bathtub started. While she ran the bath, he grabbed a knife from the kitchen. He'd been watching her for weeks—she'd just started feeling safe, like everything I'd said was a bluff, and because he was watching her he knew all her habits. Like how she'd leave the bathroom while the bath was running and go to her office to find a good book. She'd stand there for a good two minutes, trailing her fingers through her hair as she searched for one that called to her, and while she debated on what to read, he hid behind the open door. There was no struggle: he grabbed her the minute she walked in and he held her tightly, pulling her over into the bathtub. He sat behind her in the water and held her own hand on the handle of the knife, and then he drew it over her wrists one time for each year she'd been alive. He took off his clothes and put them in a trash bag before even stepping out of the tub, so he wouldn't leave bloody water drops everywhere. Shoeless so no footprints. He had gloves on, of course. He redressed in the cellar and left through the door. They found her dead in her bathtub, no signs of forced entry, no sign of a struggle. The knife had her fingerprints and she was right handed—the hand she'd been gripping the knife in. No mistakes. No questioning."

His breath smelled of stale beer as he leaned in closer to the Doctor's face. His gaze was challenging.

"And that was only 1995."

Their eyes stayed locked as Dalek challenged him, but he didn't give way. He could feel his vision blurring from panic and his heart was pounding in fear, but he couldn't do it. He couldn't.

"Let us think about it."

The Doctor turned towards Clara when she spoke, his eyes widening slightly. He couldn't believe she'd had the guts to ask that, but then he realized that was a foolish thought. They were already in about as much trouble as they could get in.

Dalek's laugh was short and hard. "Let you _think _about it?" He looked to the Doctor, his face amused. "She really does think she's special. I wonder if there's a reason for that."

The Doctor kept his face blank, not wanting to give Dalek even the slightest hint that he was on his side in any way or form. He wouldn't team up against Clara with this man, especially not after she'd refused to team up against him. _Give and take in equal measures_. That's what his mother had always said. When she was clean.

Dalek walked up to her, and the Doctor was suddenly sure he was going to do something horrible to her. He watched him lift his hand, fingers gripping her loose hair roughly—and then he laughed. He relaxed his fingers, dropping her hair.

"Okay." He said, but the Doctor could hear it for what it was. This was not a gift. This was a punishment. He turned away from Clara and crossed back over to the sofa. They watched as he picked up her purse, something she must have left in here before the party, intending on returning to get it before she went home. It must have been why they were here in the first place. "You two can think about it all weekend in this office."

That obviously hadn't been what Clara intended. She parted her lips to protest, but she couldn't seem to come up with anything. The Doctor was similarly torn.

"As I said before, the power is off. My men are still here and any attempts to leave the office will be met with swift disposal. I'll be back Sunday night for your…ah, _final _decision." He gave Clara's purse a shake, his smiling widening at the distinct sound of a bottle of pills rattling about. "Hope there's not anything you need in here."

The implications were clear and the Doctor knew addicts. He knew addicts, and so he knew to cross the room and restrain Clara before she even tried to snatch the purse back. She fought weakly against his hold.

"Please, just let me get my medicine." She tried. Her voice was desperate and nearing hysteria. "Please!"

Dalek ignored her completely. He looked to the Doctor.

"You left your wallet and phone in your car, yes?"

He had. All he had with him were his keys, assuming all he was doing was dropping Clara off at her office and then heading back to the car. His heart plummeted with regret as he gave a short, affirmative nod.

Dalek's smile was cruel and taunting.

"Have a nice _think_." He said. He opened the door and then paused, turning back around to give the Doctor a thoughtful look. "Oh, and thank you for the dinner invite."

The door slammed hard behind him, and as soon as he was gone from the room, Clara sank down to the ground. The Doctor let go of her and let her sit, hurrying over to the door. He pressed his ear against the wood, listening as Dalek talked with what sounded like at least five other men. He couldn't hear anything to indicate that they were armed, but he wasn't sure if he had any reason to even hope they weren't either.

The Doctor turned around and scanned the office, biting nervously at his thumbnail as he did. He turned his gaze to Clara, sitting on the floor with her face pressed into her thighs. He had a dual image for a moment—Clara sitting, quivering, and his mother curled up in a ball on the floor, quivering—and it was enough to snap him into motion.

"Clara." He called firmly. "Clara, look at me. Look at me now."

She didn't lift her head or acknowledge him for a good ten seconds, but after that time elapsed, she lifted her face, meeting his gaze. Her eyes were streaming, but whether from fear or pain (or maybe fear of the pain) he wasn't sure. He filled his lungs and tried to compartmentalize his own fear. He couldn't be scared right now. He had to be clear, logical.

"Do you keep anything in here that might be used a weapon? Think." He whispered. "Pepper spray, pocket knife—anything like that."

She lifted her shoulders just barely, a weak shrug, and collapsed back in on herself. He could hear her struggled breaths and he had the natural instinct suddenly to help, but there was no way to help. Not with what they had at hand. He knew from experience that drug users needed to be slowly weaned off substances, not suddenly locked in a room to withdrawal all at once. He was suddenly sure that no matter what those men did to them, it might not meet the suffering Clara was already to endure.

He cursed roughly underneath his breath at her silence—equal parts angry and uneasy about her sudden uselessness—and walked over to her desk, falling heavily into her office chair. It was so low to the ground his knees jutted up sharply when he sat down. He yanked her first drawer open and began rivaling through quickly—box of staples, box of pens, folders, folders, folders, paper, stationary, highlighters—he slammed it back shut and looked up, bristling with fear-induced anger.

"You don't even have scissors?!" He demanded furiously. "Is this an office or a daycare?!"

He was surprised to find that she responded to his anger more than his logic. Her head lifted, her eyes flashing for a moment underneath her distress.

"_Second _drawer," She bit out, her tone making it clear she wasn't impressed with his less-than-thorough searching skills.

Sure enough, when he yanked open the second drawer, there was a cup with scissors, Sharpies, and even an x-acto knife sitting up neatly. He suddenly had an itchy, nervous urge in his hands to hide the x-acto knife from her. He stared at it for a long moment and then reached forward, closing his hand around it and stuffing it into the inside pocket just above the red silk lining of his jacket. He looked back up.

"Do you have any medicine here?" He asked her. He tried to keep his voice calm, but he was slowly understanding just how awful of a situation they were in. Both of them. He opened the top drawer as he spoke, rummaging around to look for loose pills. "Maybe a few you left lying in the bottom of a drawer? Or in the bathroom? It's important. You shouldn't get off it all at once."

The brief, distressed whimper she gave tipped him off to the fact that she understood that just fine already. When he glanced up at her after failing to find what he wanted, he saw she was at least sitting up. Her face was pressed into her hands, but she was up, and that was always something.

"I did. I used to. But then you found out." She admitted, sharply and honestly. "I took it all out because I was worried you'd call the cops."

He turned the chair slightly, just enough that his face wasn't in her view. His eyes shut for the briefest moment with regret and frustration. Of course. Of _course_. And sure he'd been validated in what he'd said at the time, but he was wishing he hadn't now. When he told her to get off the drugs, he didn't much care how she did. He certainly didn't plan on being the one stuck with her through a violent withdrawal. He'd already witnessed one of those and he hadn't ever planned on it again.

He turned back and nodded his head.

"Right." He said. It was softer than he'd expected, almost regretful, and he kept speaking to bury that from her notice. "What are you feeling right now? List it out."

When she only gave him a cross look, he huffed. He stood up from the chair. He was careful as he walked towards her, thinking she'd been approached aggressively enough tonight.

"I'm serious. Withdrawals are all alike in some ways and different in others. They can vary in extremes and durations. What are you feeling?"

She lowered her hands and pressed them to her stomach instead, her eyes seeking out his. Her words were almost as shaky as she was.

"I can't stop shaking. I'm cold but I'm sweating like I'm feverish. My eyes are watering—or maybe I'm crying. I don't know." Her words strangled themselves, her voice ending in almost a choke. She took a steadying breath and continued. "I feel like I'm dying."

He tugged on the bottom of his jacket to straighten it and cleared his throat, turning his observing gaze to her.

"That's called dysphoria. It should get better after the first day or two." He relayed coolly. He hesitated. "Or three, depending on the substance and how much you were on."

Clara looked at him with wide, wet eyes, her trembling body caving back like his words had struck her. And then she was climbing up to her feet, her head turning back and forth.

"No," she whimpered. She kept shaking her head as she stood, and the Doctor felt a pulse of panic when she began turning towards the door. "No, I can't. I can't—no."

He was across the room in three seconds when she began walking to the door. He stepped between her advancing body and the wood, his eyes hard.

"What do you think you're going to do?" He demanded. "Do you think if you ask them nicely they'll just let us out?"

Clara lifted her hands and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, hard enough that it made the Doctor wince.

"I don't know, I don't know, I don't know!" She gasped. "But I can't do this—I can't—I don't care if they shoot me—I don't care what they do—I'm going out, I can't stay in here, I can't—"

He was simultaneously twelve years old and fifty-five as he leaned forward, tightly grasping her upper arms. His mother had used cocaine his entire life and no matter how many withdrawals they helped her through, she always ended up like this. Shaking on the ground, convinced she couldn't live without it. And he was always like this: a boy, trying so hard to control a situation that was known and craved for its uncontrollability. His mother died from an overdose and the Doctor—an adult by that point—didn't go to her funeral because he couldn't tell her goodbye while he still hated her. His father was already dead by then and that was the only victory about the entire situation, that he didn't have to see it happen.

But the Doctor didn't like to think of the past.

She brought him back to the present as she began fighting against his hold fiercely, her eyes piercing hard into his as she tried to push him off her.

"Let me go," she gasped, and when he didn't comply, she struggled even harder. "Let me go! Let _go_!"

And because he was his father's son, his first instinct was to do what his father always had. Let her crumble to the floor, step back, look down at her in disgust at her weakness. Scream at her to be stronger, braver, smarter. But they were both in the ground, a solid testament to the fallibility of his father's selfish methods.

He didn't believe in second changes. He thought you fucked up once and that was that; you were a fuck up. But everything he'd seen tonight had made him wonder if all his beliefs were fundamentally incorrect, so he decided to do what he'd always tried to do as a boy, before his father rubbed off on him.

He gripped her tighter and then lifted her up some, stooping down himself until their eyes were at the same level. She scowled at him with what looked like all the energy she had left, but he didn't glower back. He scrounged within himself for the strength to shove away his pride, and once he found it, he brought her closer.

"Hey," he said softly, gently. It was the change in tone that caught her attention, drawing her eyes back to his. She'd been glancing towards the door once more, like she was plotting a way to get away. She blinked once, her eyelashes brushing the circles underneath her eyes, and he nodded his head slightly.

"It's okay." He told her. He worked to keep his voice smooth, even. He didn't want her to catch the distress filling him up to the brim. "I know it hurts and I know it's hard. I know you're terrified. But it's going to be okay. Things are never as bad as your mind tells you they are, okay?" When she began glancing towards the door again, a groan of pain leaving her lips, he gripped her arms tighter.

"Hey," he said again, this time to gather her attention. She looked back, her face holding an expression of confusion and pain. "Listen. Are you listening to me? Don't listen to your mind. Listen to _me_."

It occurred to him that she was earth and he was ice when she slowly nodded her head. Her brown eyes didn't leave his grey-blue ones this time, and he felt guilty when he understood just how much he was controlling her in that moment. How much he was freezing over her mind. But he meant the best for once. It was the one time he'd managed to get her to listen to him, and it wasn't even to get anything for himself.

"I am." She finally croaked.

His heart swelled and then eased, swinging slowly to a stop from its anxious rocking. He felt the muscles in his upper back unknot slowly as he exhaled, closing his eyes briefly in relief.

"Good." He said. He gave her arms a brief squeeze—a squeeze that was probably harder and more aggressive than he'd meant it to be—but if she saw it in a violent way she didn't show it. "Let's sit down. On the couch, okay?"

He let go and watched her walk over, sitting down slowly, uncertainly. She brought her legs to her chest and gripped them, face still pale and body shivering. If he'd ever imagined himself in this situation, even the thought would have _infuriated _him. But he was full of nothing but _have-to_s. He couldn't think about the way it all made him feel, simply because there were things he had to make happened, or they'd die. And that would be such a waste. It was always such a waste.

She looked up at him when he sat down beside her, her brown eyes wide and reflective. They were so watery that drops of moisture were slowly sliding down her cheeks like tears. He watched a drop cling to her jawbone, hesitating for a long moment before finally dripping down onto her collarbone, and he watched it slide until it disappeared beneath her dress. He glanced back up and swallowed hard, suddenly certain he was never meant to see this side of her. He was never meant to feel anything but hatred for her. Because that opened the door for a multitude of other feelings.

He didn't think about his past often. He thought it foolish and masochistic. But now he found himself actively trying to recall bad memories, anything to give him a clue on what to do now. How to help her so he could help them. If she stormed out there, they'd probably both end up dead, and he didn't think it'd be a nice one. He remembered sitting beside his mother when he was younger and just talking—about school, about his science experiments, about his friends. He couldn't remember now if it'd helped much, but it had to have been better than his father's reactions.

He was just about to open his mouth and begin speaking, about anything he could think of, but she rose suddenly to her feet, her face crumpled with distress once more. He didn't even let her take one step; he grabbed her and pulled her back down onto the couch. This time he didn't let go of her arms. He realized he was squeezing her just a bit too hard—his subconscious way of venting some of the anger that couldn't quite touch him right now—when she grimaced, her eyes drifting down to his hands. He immediately let up his crushing hold, but she surprised him by making a noise of protest, her small hands rising to settle over his. She held his hands to her upper arms, her lips parting wordlessly a few times.

"Don't let go," she finally said. "It helps."

He looked at her uncertainly, gripping her just a little tighter. She slowly dropped her hands and gritted her teeth, letting her eyes drift shut. He watched the tears building in the inner corners of her eyes.

"Tighter."

He hesitated, already certain he'd give her bruises.

"Doesn't it hurt?" He questioned.

Her eyes moved underneath her closed eyelids, but she didn't open them.

"Yes." She told him, voice pinched. "It does. Make it hurt more."

There'd been plenty of times he thought what he wanted was to see her in pain, but when the opportunity arose, he found it was the furthest thing away from what he craved. His stomach churned uneasily at the thought of it, at the sight of his hands on her skin, pinching her arms to the point of bruising.

But then she leaned further into his touch, lips parting just slightly as she gave her head a quick nod, as if to reassure him that it was helping and not harming. So he ground his own teeth and tensed his fingers, squeezing harder than he had before, watching the grimace set on her face.

"Like that?"

She nodded almost frantically, head moving up and down for a good five seconds.

"Yeah," she said breathlessly. "Like that."

It was abrupt and absolutely unwarranted, considering the situation, but he felt a hot lick of suggestion in his lower stomach. The back of his neck burned and he shifted, working to keep his hold tight and simultaneously stop whatever inappropriate path his thoughts were beginning to take. _I'm too old for this_, he wanted to say. It'd been years since he'd had to control his thoughts in public.

He looked back at her, with her eyes still shut and her lips parted just slightly, and he hurried to change the charged atmosphere.

"Tell me a story, or a memory, or a lie," he blurted. He thought back to his mother, lying in a ball listening to him rambling on about the little mouse he'd seen darting about the school halls.

"I don't have a story or a memory," she said in frustration. Her eyelids fluttered open without warning, exposing the Doctor to the damp earth of her eyes. "Harder. It's hurting less."

He slid his hands down to another spot on her arms, not wanting to bruise her severely, and tightened to the point he'd been at before. She huffed and nodded, eyes squinting closed as she fought against whatever pain was wrecking her. He couldn't imagine how this helped, unless it hurt enough that she could focus on it instead of the debilitating voice that was insisting she'd die without the drug.

"Sure you do." He said impatiently. His eyes traveled around the room as he searched for something. "You know that game kids play here? Two truths and a lie?"

She nodded once.

"Give me two truths and one lie."

She tried, she really did. She opened her mouth to say something at least three times, but her words always began and ended with a gasp of pain, nothing much in between.

"How long is it going to feel like this?" She asked him tearfully, and it was the most vulnerable question he'd ever heard. She asked him like she truly expected him to know, like he was the one guiding her through this, and he realized with equal parts sickness and surprise that he was.

"I don't know." He admitted. He hated that he didn't. "For a while. Until he comes back. Probably even after."

_I'm sorry_. He felt the words climbing up his throat and he stopped them just in time, angrily looking away from her, like it was her fault he'd almost said something he didn't feel he should have wanted to.

His fingers began cramping and he slowly eased his grip.

"Your arms should hurt plenty when I let go," he told her. "So I'm going to. Okay?"

She inclined her head but didn't say anything. He slid his hands off her completely, returning them to his sides, and she gave a light hiss of pain that indicated he hadn't been wrong.

"Don't think about the pain. Don't even think about that pain. Say something." He suggested.

Clara groaned in frustration, opening her eyes to meet his.

"I feel like I'm dying and you want to chat?" She demanded in disbelief.

"I want to chat _because _you feel like you're dying." He corrected stiffly. "It'll get your mind off it some. Try. You don't even have to say anything about yourself. Just _talk_."

Clara was quiet for at least two minutes, her eyebrows furrowed as she concentrated.

"Two truths and a lie," she started, voice pulled tight. She still had her eyes pinched shut. "I grew up two blocks away, I love to bake soufflés, and…fuck! I don't know. God! Shit—" she stopped and leaned forward, tucking her head between her knees. He waited while she rode out whatever wave of pain had overtaken her. She lifted her head and tacked on something quickly. "I wanted to be an English teacher."

It was easy. He answered quickly to keep the flow of the conversation quick.

"The third one. That's the lie." He responded confidently.

Clara looked up at him, seemingly surprised by his answer. "No. The first one's the lie."

He furrowed his own eyebrows, giving her an odd look. If she wanted to be an English teacher, why the hell was she _here_, dealing with all this capitalistic shit?

"Then why are you here?" He demanded. Life was too short. No one seemed to realize that anymore. "Go teach. Why aren't you doing that?"

She crossed her arms back over her stomach, gripping her waist tightly.

"Because I didn't grow up two blocks from here." She answered shortly. She didn't give him time to think that response out. "You go. If I have to do it, you have to. _You _say something."

He bristled immediately. "No. I'm not the one in pain. You're the one who needs to be talking."

She groaned, her anger rising in time with his. "Then fucking say something to get me talking! Has anyone ever told you that you're extremely unsociable?"

"Has anyone ever told you that you're extremely bossy?"

"I _strive _to be bossy!" She snapped. She leaned forward again, head resting in her lap. "Go. You go."

It was only the pattern of her pained breathing that could push the words from him. He looked away as he scrambled, realizing it was harder than he'd thought.

He started with something that had already been on his mind all night long.

"My mum did coke my entire life." He started. A lie, a lie. He scrambled to think of one. "I've…got a doctorate in business. And I've got a cat."

Clara was as quick as he'd been.

"No cat."

He looked at her closely, trying to read her reasoning for that on her face.

"Yes cat," he said, surprised to find it left him a bit defensively. Like she'd said he wasn't loving enough to take care of a cat (which was what he was sure she was thinking, anyway). "I've had her for years."

"Fucking cat my ass!" She replied immediately, and the corners of her mouth actually turned up slightly, like he was telling a particularly humorous lie. "You don't have a cat!"

He clenched and unclenched his jaw in affront.

"I do so! I do so have a pissing cat!" He growled. "Her name's Tardis! She's a Scottish fold! She likes sardines in her food when she's cross with me and she naps on top of the fridge!"

A silence trickled down over them. Clara's eyes widened.

"Wow," she finally said, a bit breathlessly from her pain. "Okay, so you have a cat."

He relaxed, his defenses going down. "Yeah. So you might want to check your facts next time, Oswald."

The words were angry and even a bit hateful, but suddenly, she gave a short, pinched laugh. He watched as she grew as confused as him, but a second later she laughed again, her eyes still watering and body quivering. The laughter tumbled from her lips like an embarrassing secret.

"This is ridiculous," she gasped. "This is—we're locked up here and the thing that's surprised me most tonight is the fact that you have a goddamn _cat_."

He groaned angrily, throwing his hands up in the air. "Why is that surprising?!"

"I don't have the time or the stability to list it all out right now," she shot back. "Use your imagination."

A silence settled over them after that. He suddenly felt the air between them grow awkward and cold, and he shuffled a bit to his left to put some distance between them. His heart was soaking through with fear. He couldn't hold the question back any longer.

"Why didn't you take the deal?"

He looked to her right after he asked the question, his lips pursed into a tight line.

"You should have just taken it._ I_ should have taken it." He admitted.

Clara's voice was certain. "No. We shouldn't have. If I gave things up to people each time they backed me into a corner, I'd have nothing left. And besides, you know I don't respond well to threats."

Something about her words made his own lips curve up at the corners and his heart dry up, just enough that it wasn't sopping and sinking down to his toes with distress. His chest cavity felt lighter after that.

"No, you don't." He agreed with slight amusement. It was almost funny now, when they were here. Locked up and united against an enemy that wasn't each other. All their bickering and fighting seemed so pointless now that they were faced with what they were. "Still, though. What's the plan for when he comes back?"

Clara looked to him, her eyebrows lifted in nothing short of shock. Her breath skidded past her parted lips, sending bits of her hair flying up, and she was stuck for a moment.

"You're asking _me_?" She finally demanded slowly.

He stared, not sure what she was getting at. She shifted slightly on the couch, turning so she was facing him more.

"After all these months of refusing to even let me add verbal input on your decisions, you're asking _me _what the plan is to save our _lives_?" She continued.

He looked away, the implications of her question slamming into him. He felt the back of his neck burn up again and he didn't want to say: _I trust you now. I saw you stare death in the face and I trust you now. Or maybe I've just finally realized the dangerous illusion that control is. I've fucked up and I don't want to _be _a fuck up. Not anymore. _

"You're my COO." He said uncomfortably. He couldn't meet her eyes. "It's your job to clean up my mistakes. And it's my…" he hesitated, the word sticky in his throat. He pushed it forward after a moment of struggle. "Fault. It's my fault we're stuck here."

He didn't say "I'm sorry", but his words had the shape and tone of an apology. And it was enough to floor Clara Oswald. He'd yet to see her without words, not when he slung his cruelest words her way, not when that man was threatening awful things. But she was staring at him now with wide eyes and no idea of what to say.

"All right then." She finally said. And that was that.

They had a little under forty-eight hours to keep her sane through her suffering, figure out what to do when that man returned, and try to keep from snapping at each other and reverting back to the angry, frustrated versions of themselves they'd been before. And the Doctor wasn't sure which would be the hardest.


	6. Avalanches

**A/n: **The effort about killed me but I got this posted almost by when I wanted to! Thank you all- hope you enjoy.

* * *

There was only one other day that lasted as long in the Doctor's mind as that Friday had, and it was the day his ex-wife had casually mentioned over breakfast that she wanted a divorce.

They were still in their bedclothes, eating breakfast in a familiar silence, and she said words he would never forget, though he would try very hard to. He'd try to find a way to leave them behind through his work, through his control, and even through a bottle when things got particularly heavy. But he'd never quite managed to erase the way her face had looked—day old mascara caked to her eyelashes, hair disheveled—as she'd told him: _it took me twenty-three years, but I've figured it out. Love is nothing but a psychosis. You don't love anyone at all, not really. You love the idea of them, and over the years you slowly start to realize that no one is your perfect idea, and then you get angry. And it's not fair to anyone, is it? I can't hate you for not being the man I fell in love with, because the man I fell in love with never existed at all. How silly. _

Each word took up an hour in his mind. The memory of it went on for days and he was certain he'd die with it still replaying on loop sometimes. But Friday night went on for years.

He filled two coffee mugs with water while Clara shook just beside his feet, her knees pressed hard into the tile and her forearms draped over the toilet seat. He listened to the sound of her retching, then her gasping, and then her crying. It was an awful cycle that made his own stomach ache and his heart shrink back. He was afraid to admit to himself exactly why it pulled that emotion forth, but he knew. As soon as he'd called her his COO, he knew he'd made a mistake, because he meant it. He meant it. He'd used a possessive pronoun, and he'd meant it.

He carried his mug back into the office, leaving her alone in the adjoining bathroom. He sat down in her chair and tried to ignore the urge to go to her, to help her, because he was afraid of it. He didn't want it. Lock two enemies in a room and what do you get? There should be fighting. There should be swelling rage. But he felt nothing akin to that.

He had hated the idea of her. He'd hated the idea of her enough to fuel months' worth of blind animosity with little guilt. He'd looked at her and he'd formed this tidy, subjective view in his mind: rich, spoiled, uncaring. Lofty, selfish, cruel. But the longer he spent with her, the more he understood that his view was fundamentally incorrect, and he didn't hate the little he knew about who she really was.

It was quiet and he almost didn't hear it, but intermingled with her ragged sobs, he heard his own name. He ran his finger around the rim of the coffee mug and closed his eyes, tensing his muscles against his instinct to rise. He waited. He counted to ten, and he told himself if she did it again—

"Doctor?"

He set the mug down on her desk and slid the chair back before he stood, trying to ignore the tired creaks his body gave. It had to have been at least four AM by now, but he knew there was no sleep to be had.

He leaned against the bathroom doorframe as he entered, staring down at her tortured body. It was getting worse now, reaching a point so intense that he didn't even have to worry that she'd run screaming from the room. It was so bad he was more worried she'd end up sleeping with her head on the toilet seat just because she couldn't move anywhere else.

"Yeah?" He asked. His tone came out tired, annoyed. He kneaded at the back of his neck as he waited for her words.

She didn't even lift her head. The right sleeve of her dress had slid down her arm once again, so far that the Doctor was sure had she been facing him that at least half her breast would have been showing. If she noticed, she didn't care. Or perhaps she was unable to do anything about it.

"I don't think it's supposed to feel this bad," she told him hoarsely. There was fear in her voice, but it was buried beneath so much pain that it took a while to get to it.

He took a few hesitant steps into the bathroom, leaning against the sink instead. He stared down at her, his mouth twisted, and cleared his throat roughly.

"I'm afraid it is." He finally said. But the words were hard again, sharper than he'd intended. They made his mouth ache. He stared at the smooth skin of her neck for a moment, tracing his eyes hesitantly down to that scar. He looked at it like one looks at something they've been absolutely forbidden to see, because he knew she probably wouldn't have wanted him to. But it was hard to look away. It had the slightly puckered texture of a scar that was the result of something major, and as he stared at the pink, jagged line, he tried to think of what could cause a mark like that. He didn't get very far.

Her responding cries—muffled into her forearm and slightly strangled—were difficult in ways he didn't want to address, much less think about. There was the instinctive connection to his failure to save his mother, but then there was a stinging realization that wouldn't leave his head now. The realization that she was _his _COO. He had, all at once, made her something he could lose. He'd claimed her.

He stared at her for a moment longer—his shoulders tense, his hands clenched tightly at his sides—and then he took a step back and opened the cabinet underneath the sink. He located the folded hand towels the janitorial service provided and pulled one out, stepping back to turn the tap on. He waited until the water was just a little hotter than lukewarm and soaked the towel through, wringing it tightly for a few seconds. He listened to the echoing sound of the water slapping against the porcelain, surprised to find his own hands were shaking a bit. And then he stepped back to her side and slowly kneeled down beside her, ignoring the cracks his knees gave.

She jumped the first time he pressed the towel to her forehead, her eyelids fluttering open in surprise and her head lifting just slightly. Her watery eyes locked onto his, sharp with alarm, but it only took a few tense moments for her to understand. She slowly leaned her head back down. He eased into it; he gently pressed the towel back to the same spot and held it there for a good twenty seconds, listening to the labored pattern of her breathing.

"I have a dog at home," she told him. He didn't know if her voice was so hoarse from crying or from dry heaving. She spoke as if she'd gotten the insides of her throat rubbed down with sandpaper, and because of that he slowly slid the towel down, letting it rest on her neck instead. A softer sound left her at that, something between a hum of contentment and a sigh of relief, and it was like a hook digging into his stomach. It was the brief, slight upturn of her lips that pulled on it.

"What kind of dog?" He asked, just to keep her talking. He figured sleep wouldn't come as long as she was in so much pain, so talking would be the best way to go. It'd worked before, at least. And it was the only thing he even knew to do at this point, with their limited resources.

"She's a golden retriever." Clara shared. She sniffed and he watched a tear slip out from underneath her closed eyelids, sliding slowly down her cheek. "I don't know what's going to happen to her if something happens to me. And she's in a hotel room alone. She'll be so hungry and she'll bark and they might—if they can't get a hold of me—"

Her words broke off with a shuddering sob. He watched her helplessly, his own heart sinking as he thought of TARDIS. She'd be just fine for a few days without him—she could get into her food container if she really needed to, the clever creature—but what happened in the long term? She'd be so angry.

He didn't know what to say, so he rose to his feet and crossed back to the sink, wringing out the cold water and rewetting the towel. Once it was warm in his hands, he sank back down, this time pressing it to her tear-streaked cheeks. She sniffed and he didn't say anything as she cried. For once, he didn't think her weak for it.

"Animals can surprise you," he finally thought to say. "They're smarter than people give them credit for."

When the towel grew cold once more, he stood and set it on the counter and then grabbed the mug he'd filled minutes earlier, sitting back down where he was before. He set a gentle hand on Clara's bare shoulder, waiting until her eyes fluttered open weakly.

"You need to drink some water."

His hand slid down as she shifted up into a sitting position, slipping from the top of her shoulder to her shoulder blade. He had barely registered the feeling of his palm sliding lightly over her scar, the skin slightly raised and smooth, when she jumped violently, body twisting back from his like he'd been the one to inflict it.

He yanked his hand back quickly. He could feel the horrified look on his face, but it took a moment to smooth it away. Clara was abruptly coherent, if only for long enough to hurriedly yank her dress back up over herself, pallid expression burning pink for just a few moments.

"I'm sorry," he found himself saying quickly. It was the first time he'd said the words to her, and it was because of the crippling vulnerability he saw in her eyes. He understood it all too well. He felt like his hand was tainted, like he'd just committed some awful crime. He curled his fingers closed like prison bars and kept his palm locked away.

Clara's eyes jumped around the small room, never landing on any one thing for more than a couple of seconds. She swallowed and quickly extended her shaky hands, reaching for the mug in the Doctor's, and his warning was fresh on his lips as she grabbed it. He knew she was trying to distance herself from him, trying to do something on her own, but she was quivering so violently that the contents of the mug sloshed over the sides, splashing down the front of her dress and soaking through the fabric covering her thighs.

Her reaction was quick and volatile. She went from staring down at her wet dress with wide eyes to groaning with frustration and pain, the kind that only helpless suffering could cause. The Doctor's hand caught her wrist right before she hurdled the mug at the wall, mindful of the fact that it was one of the only two she had in her office.

He expected her to lash out at him, to kick at him, to scream. But what she did was infinitely worse. She crumbled, her hand sliding from his grasp as she bowed her body.

"It's all right," he said almost frantically. "Just a bit of water."

The words were muffled into her thighs.

"I did this to myself," she croaked.

Well, she had. They all did. They got themselves so addicted to a substance and then wondered why their bodies revolted when they suddenly stopped supplying it.

"You did." He agreed. He wouldn't lie. He didn't want to absolve her of her responsibility; he wanted her to recognize what she'd done to herself. He wanted her to say that she would detox completely and never touch it again. He wanted to believe that an addict _could _do that, could do what his mother had failed to do so many times. "Don't do it anymore."

She lifted her head, her eyes red and streaming.

"It's not that easy," she said thickly. "I need it."

He shook his head, pity biting hard into his heart.

"Look at yourself, Clara," he said gently. He looked from her trembling limbs to her pinched face. "Do you need anything that does this to you?"

He was sure the thought must have crossed her mind before, but the way she was looking at him now made him wonder if perhaps it hadn't. As if she'd never thought to blame the drug for the way she felt (but maybe she hadn't. Maybe she'd been blaming herself all along).

She sniffed, reaching up weakly to tear a piece of toilet paper from the roll. She blew her nose and tossed it carelessly into the trashcan beside the toilet, not caring to aim well seeing as though her shakiness would ensure she missed anyway. She looked back at him.

"I can't imagine feeling like this for another five days, or another four, or even another hour." She admitted.

He picked the mug back up and returned to the sink, refilling it with cold water. He was mindful to hold it for her this time as he tilted it back, letting her get a mouthful before pulling it away. She murmured a thank you.

"Do you plan on being on that drug the rest of your life?" He asked her. "Because if not, you're going to have to endure withdrawal to some degree at some point. If you get it over with now, you can be done with this. But if you go back to it, all of this suffering was for nothing."

She pressed her hands over her eyes and shook her head.

"It almost makes me wish that I won't get out of here." She whispered.

He hadn't planned on bringing it up. He hadn't planned on any of this: cleaning the sweat from her face, touching her back, counseling her. But it was all happening anyway and he wondered for a moment why that wasn't flooring him with terror. He wasn't even in control of his own self and it should have horrified him, but he couldn't think of anything except helping her through this and getting it right this time.

"Tonight. With the alcohol…" he started hesitantly. He searched for the easiest way to word it, but when he glanced at her face, her expression burned the words before they could even reach his lips. He saw everything he needed to know in her wide, reflective eyes.

"John and I met at a party that was so much like that one," she said. Her words were barely audible. "I'd never been to one without him."

The words were reflexive and almost angry.

"He wouldn't want you to die for him." He insisted.

Clara's eyes flashed with an emotion he hadn't seen for a while now.

"And how would you know that?" She snapped. "You didn't know him."

He averted his gaze. Their joined look was stifling.

"Because he loved you."

Clara was quiet. When he looked back up at her, she was sitting with her face in her hands.

"He did." She said, and then her words thinned like her throat was narrowing. "He _did_."

The past hurt more than the future ever could and it was the only thing you couldn't change. Life was unfair that way.

* * *

He estimated that they'd been locked in the room for around six hours.

The dim lighting of the emergency lights gave way to the first streaks of dawn as they sat on the sofa together, watching the obscured sunrise above Manhattan. It might have been peaceful, if it wasn't for the constant chattering of Clara's teeth as she shook and the accelerated pace of the Doctor's heartbeat. They were running out of time and they had too much and he didn't like the odd dualities of that feeling.

Her withdrawal gave way to a level of emotional discomfort that rendered her quiet and listless. She curled up on her side on the sofa, face pressing into the back cushions, and didn't move for hours. He jumped nervously from activity to activity—reading the books she had in her office, organizing her pens by color, checking the vents for possible escape routes, listening to the muffled sound of the men outside the door chattering—but nothing could hold him down. Not the way she could when she was speaking.

After what had to have been at least three hours in that same position, she turned over onto her back and sought him out with her eyes. He was sitting behind her desk, reading a book on the stock market crash of 2008, but when he felt the weight of her gaze on him he glanced up from the pages.

"Do you have a plan yet?" She asked him quietly. "Because I've got the best one I'm going to come up with."

He quickly placed the book down onto the desk and crossed over to her, sitting down carefully beside her supine body. The crown of her head just barely grazed his outer thigh and it froze him for a short time, a time where his eyes were locked on hers and all he was doing was replaying the sensation. But then she slowly sat up, using her hands to push herself upright. He waited for her speak, but she didn't. Instead, she moved onto her knees and slid closer to his side, gently resting her ear on his shoulder and tucking her face against his neck.

He forgot to breathe. He had never in his life felt that sensation of overwhelming surprise, but for the first time, it floored him. And his hand reached up automatically, to settle lightly between her shoulder blades, but then he remembered how she'd jumped back in the bathroom and he clenched his fists instead.

"They could be listening," she whispered softly, her breath fanning out warmly against his ear. "He's been watching us, remember? He knew about my sister. And the drugs."

His spine relaxed, but only slightly. He understood she was melting into him for necessity's sake, but it didn't stop the fact that he could feel her trembling body pressed against his, all the gentle curves he'd somehow forgotten were there. He couldn't forget them now though, and his hands ached to map them out. His body was betraying him.

He was about to tell her to get on with it, but then she was shifting closer, her lips almost up against his ear this time. And he couldn't stop his hand from settling on her back—it was automatic. He made sure to rest it on her lower back instead of her upper though, mindful of the ways in which healed scars could still sear.

"When he comes back, we tell him yes," Clara began. It wasn't what he expected to hear and she must have sensed that in the slight withdraw of his body. She leaned in closer to compensate and continued quickly. "We'll have six months before he expects the first payout. That gives us six months to figure out a way to compile enough solid evidence to take him down. Six months to fuck him."

And he grew so frustrated then, because here they were, locked in an office talking about their slim chances of getting out of it alive, and the sound of her voice murmuring _fuck _against the shell of his ear had him clenching his jaw. They were here, prisoners in their own domain, and he was suddenly finding himself thinking that he wanted to touch her. That he needed to.

He slid across the couch in a few moments, back of his neck burning and heart beating rapidly. Clara watched him uncertainly, still kneeling, her body curved around one that wasn't there anymore.

He had to look away from her and her drooping satin dress to focus on the plan she'd proposed. He had to stand and pace around the room for at least a minute, his hands tugging almost angrily at his hair as he thought. He responded with his back to her.

"I don't have a better plan," he admitted. He'd been thinking as he read and organized, but he hadn't gotten very far. The best he'd come up with was setting the curtains on fire with the lighter Clara had in here for her abundance of candles, but that could very easily result in them burning to death in here before any fire officials were phoned. "It'll be difficult to pull off, but I don't have anything better, and at least—"

He bit his tongue quickly, turning to glance at her as he remembered her theory about them being overheard. She was sitting down on her bottom now, legs crossed and wrists draped over her calves to weigh her dress down. He settled back down beside her tensely, his muscles drawn tight like a bow, reading to jump back up at the slightest touch from her.

"At least it buys us _time_," he completed, mouthing the last word inaudibly.

Clara nodded stiffly, eyes dropping down to her hands. He floundered for something to say, suddenly feeling that thick, awkward quality return to the air between them. It was almost worse than the angrily charged air they usually cohabited.

"It's good," he admitted brusquely. "I mean—better than mine."

Clara tapped her head shakily, flashing a small, tense smile for a brief moment.

"Two heads are usually better than one."

He didn't agree with that blindly. Perhaps she was correct in saying that they worked better together, but he was certain he worked better alone than with an idiot. The problem was that Clara was not an idiot, as much as he desperately wanted to believe that she was. She was his—

"You're my COO," he blurted again, the words leaving him like a knee-jerk reaction, even when he'd refused to bite them out for months. He cleared his throat and looked down to the carpet. "Tell me something."

Clara was suffering and unsure what he meant.

"About the plan?" She asked. Her voice was smaller than it'd ever been, her arms looping tightly around her stomach again. He could watch her pain play out in the lines of her posture.

"No," he said, eyes scanning from the drawn muscles in her neck to the clenched grip of her arms. "About you. I hated you for so long, and the person I hated didn't even exist."

Clara didn't smile or laugh. She didn't even quirk up her lips. Her brown eyes examined him slowly, intently.

"Maybe she does exist." She finally said. He could hear the self-hatred those words were swimming in. "Maybe it's just hard to hate me when I'm the only other person in this room."

He shook his head without a second's hesitation, because he knew he'd been wrong. She hadn't reacted to anything that had happened to them in a way even slightly close to how he'd imagined she would. And it's always people's actions that pin them down, anyway.

"It's not that."

Clara shifted slightly to the side, so she was facing him. He found his body mirroring the position.

"No?"

He shook his head, his mouth pursed into a firm line. "No. I thought…I had you figured out. In my mind you were a spoiled brat raised in Manhattan. Daddy's little girl. You spent your high school years breaking every heart you could get your hands on for the fun of it. And then you manipulated John Smith into a relationship, stole every ounce of his power, and secretly found yourself glad when you knew he'd be leaving the company to you. I imagined the spite you had for me came from the fact that I wasn't easily manipulated like him."

Clara drank in every word, the pain in her eyes somehow evening out as she focused on his admission. She licked her lips and furrowed her brow as she processed it.

"That's…" she stopped, giving her head a small shake. "Yeah, okay, you were way off."

He didn't need her to tell him that. He knew he was.

"And me?" He asked. He didn't ask it hesitantly, because he knew she didn't hate him like she had before. He knew because she was no longer throwing up defenses whenever he so much as looked her way.

She laughed sourly at that. He watched her squeeze her eyes shut and breathe through an intense moment of pain, and then she looked back at him.

"Oxford schooling._ Extreme_ power issues that come from a poor self-esteem—possibly one injured by a pretty girl during your preteen years. A tendency for abusive violence when in relationships where things don't always go your way. Sexually and emotionally repressed. Sexist. Greedy. Selfish." She listed off. Her words pandered off, her eyes softening a bit. "But you haven't been like that tonight. And I think if there was ever a situation that would show someone's true colors, it's this one. So I guess I've hated someone that doesn't exist too."

He wasn't sure when the mood had shifted, or if the shift was just inside of himself, but he felt content to be sitting beside her. He looked at her, at her disheveled hair and sweaty skin, and then he smiled an easy smile.

"It's good to meet you."

She smiled softly, her eyes sharp with confusion and something else he couldn't place. She scanned her eyes over his expression before she slowly nodded, her smile still in place.

"Yeah." She said. She looked down and away from him, visibly working to push the smile from her face. "Yeah. It's good to meet you too."

* * *

Her pain had phases and sometimes they were gentle, and sometimes they were not.

"You never told me anything about yourself," he pointed out around an hour later. She'd been reduced to lying on her side in a ball again, all possibility of small talk out the window. He was worrying she'd have a seizure. His mother had only had them during withdrawals twice that he could remember, but both times had been in hospital. He wasn't sure what they'd do if it happened and it was just him in here. He may have changed his name to Doctor, but he wasn't one.

She turned so she was on her back and looked up at him, her eyes wet and aching. His stomach pulled hard and he wished it didn't have to be like this. He wished he could stop it.

She bit down on her chapped bottom lip, face pursing in pain. She shook her head.

"I can't—what? What about me? There's too many things, there's too much. I feel like I'm—"

She didn't say _dying_, but she didn't have to. She'd already said it and he knew things hadn't changed much.

He scanned his eyes over the curve of her shoulders as she squeezed her eyes against the pain, and the words left him stupidly.

"Tell me about that scar."

He fully expected her to get angry. He waited for her jump and pin a furious glare his way, but she merely blinked her eyes open and pursed her lips. She shifted slightly, hand reaching back to touch the top of it, like she'd forgotten it was there.

Her voice was shaking, but he had no way to know if it was from pain or from fear of whatever memory she was thinking of.

"Why do you care?"

The words were sharp and defensive, barring her from the vulnerability that question must cause. He floundered for an answer.

"I—I dunno. It's just…well, it's—"

She had no problem holding his gaze now. Her eyes were angry even if they were still streaming.

"Ugly?" She completed harshly. The word itself was uttered so nastily that it almost made him wince.

"I was going to say _bad,_ but…yes." He agreed. "It must have quite the story behind it."

Clara lowered her hand from it and looked away.

"Not everything has a good story behind it. Sometimes things just suck all around." She muttered. She groaned a second later, hands rising to bury themselves in her hair. He was certain she'd be at the toilet for another round of vomiting soon.

It'd been years since he'd nervously rambled, but that was exactly what he found himself doing. In his haste to meet her halfway, to prove he could give as he tried to take, he said the first thing that came to his mind.

"I've got scars on my chest. I had to get heart surgery three times when I was a kid—congenital heart defect. Probably from the coke, but my mum never owned up to it. After my last one it was always hard to breathe whenever my heart rate got up. I'd have to lie down on the ground and pant for a good five minutes. I used to play football—soccer—but after that last surgery I couldn't really anymore, and my dad said that it was actually a blessing, because I should have been focusing on my studies anyway." His words were rushed and taunt, the back of his neck burning. How long had it been since he'd told anyone anything solid about his life? Years. He was giving her power over him, and he tried to tell himself that so he'd shut up…but she'd had the opportunity to strip away his power and get him killed. She'd had it, and she didn't take it. "It was embarrassing. Ten year old kid and I couldn't even run around with my friends and my dad didn't really care and my mum tried her hardest to pretend it'd never happened at all." He looked away from her concentrated stare and looked to the floor instead. "I don't know. I just…you know. I know scars."

She was quiet for a few long moments. When he glanced back up at her, her eyes hadn't left him. She swallowed thickly, her eyes darting between his face and his chest, and then she looked away.

"As if the memories weren't enough," she said lightly, bitterly. She laughed, but he felt she only did so to make her words seem less meaningful.

"Yeah." He agreed.

He was certain she wouldn't say anything else, because her face looked closed off and she curled back onto her side. But she began speaking a few seconds later, her eyes squeezed shut, and the pattern of her words took on the same pattern of her pained breathing—quick and strained.

"My parents died in a car wreck. Cliché, I know. Only when it happened to me it didn't feel like that, because it was always one of those things that happens to everyone but you." She bit out. He waited until she somewhat stilled the chattering of her teeth. The sun was beginning to fall behind the buildings and the room was cooling down. He was sure it wasn't helping her chills. "My mom was from Canada. I was sixteen and we were driving back to the Bronx from visiting my mom's family. We were driving back roads around Buffalo because there was a huge accident on 190, and there's this one old road running alongside Lake Erie and it's right after a bridge, so it's got these—these deep ditches on both sides. It was March and dark and it was one of those things where my dad had just finished saying 'we need to watch out for black ice' when we went over the small bridge. And, I mean…I'm sure you—" her words broke off, snapping right down the middle, and he swallowed hard at the way her lips quivered. "The wheels lost traction—no one had serviced the roads recently because they weren't heavily traveled—and we made it over the bridge, but the car spun and slammed hard, front-bumper first, into the deep ditch on the side of the road. It kind of—God, it _caved in_, and I always try to think of a way to explain it that's not that…but that's what happened. The front of the car telescoped back into the back and my parents were…" _crushed_. She didn't say it, but he could see it in his mind. "I was in the back seat on the left. I don't really remember the impact. I got pinned between the driver's seat and the trunk, and I didn't even realize I was hurt, but a piece of the shattered window that was still attached to the door had stabbed just between my shoulder blades—they said when we crashed the impact shattered the window almost immediately, bounced me up, and then I kind of…fell down onto the shard sticking right up. It stabbed me a few centimeters to the right of my spine, and as I struggled to stand up it—tore right through my back. That's what the doctors said anyway. At the time I didn't even feel it because my mom's arm was—"

He reached over quickly, almost like it was a twitch he couldn't control, and settled his hand on the side of her face, stilling her words. She didn't need to tell him that. She didn't need to relive it like that. Her words stilled immediately at the contact and she shifted her face slightly so she was hiding it into the couch cushions. He wasn't sure what to say.

"How long did it take someone to find you?" He finally asked.

She sniffed and turned her face to the side again. He stared down at what he could see of her expression—damp and haunted.

"An hour?" She said uncertainly. "They told me before, but nothing they said ever seemed to match how long it felt. They thought I was going to die and they were certain I'd be paralyzed and I remember hoping that I was. Because if I was dead or paralyzed I wouldn't have to recover. It was stupid. The entire situation was…stupid."

He wished he'd been right about his view of her for a moment. Because even if he hated that version, at least she never had to endure anything like that. And she was right: it was stupid. It was pointless. Death was always stupid and always pointless.

He didn't apologize, because he knew that was one of the worst things he could have said. He cleared his throat and slowly moved his hand off her head instead, tucking it underneath his thigh.

"Well, it's healed up nicely." He finally muttered.

She turned back over onto her stomach, her face hidden from view. Her words were muffled.

"At least something has."

He couldn't tell if she drifted off to sleep after that or if she was just lying there, but he didn't want to disturb her either way. He ate a package of peanut butter crackers he'd found lying halfway crushed her drawer, but he didn't have much of an appetite. He saved the last two for Clara, but he was certain it'd be his biggest accomplishment to date if he even got her to smell one.

He was nearing a point of exhaustion that left him jittery and over-energized, but he couldn't get himself to settle down. He paced and listened to the door and examined the distance between the window and the ground. He was calculating the likelihood of someone on the eleventh floor of the building across from them seeing a call for help written in Clara's lipstick, but it was a Saturday night. No one was examining office windows in the dark.

He was pacing back from the window when he heard her teeth clank against each other again. He'd gotten so used to hearing the sound that he almost didn't notice, but something made him glance down at her again. He examined the way her knees were tucked up and her arms were wrapped around herself, but he didn't realize she was _cold _until he saw how red her nose was. But of course she was cold. She was wearing a thin satin dress that offered next to no insulation at all and she had the chills. It was late-May, so of course she wouldn't have thought she needed a coat. But she'd not planned on withdrawing either.

He spent ten minutes pacing and glancing back down at her, his mind torn, until he finally huffed and crossed back over to the sofa. He shrugged his jacket off after a moment's hesitation and awkwardly draped it over her curled up body, partially amused to find it almost completely covered her. He thought she was asleep and wouldn't notice, but a few moments later her hand lifted and her fingers curled around the edge of it.

He squared his shoulders and crossed back to her desk, falling down into her office chair. He listened to her breathing even out a bit, like she was more at ease now, and he tried not to let that hook pull on his stomach anymore.

He was halfway through a file of the past few insurance claim changes when the emergency lights sputtered and then died, throwing them into blackness. He heard Clara jerk awake immediately with a shuddering gasp and he jumped to his feet, the back of his neck prickling. It only took him a moment to remember how long the power had been out. The generator powering the emergency lights might have died, or perhaps Dalek was convinced they weren't suffering enough.

"Fuck," he cursed underneath his breath. He spanned his hands over Clara's desk, searching for the tiny dish she had the lighter in. The first time he'd stepped into her office, the candles and red sofa had irritated him, but now he was thanking her silently for the homey touches she'd added to her office.

The top of the desk was thrown into flickering shadows when he sparked the lighter. He leaned close to the flame and ran it over the desk until he spotted a candle, and then he brought the flame down to the wick. He waited until it caught flame and then lifted that candle, carrying it slowly around the office as he located and lit each one he found. After a few minutes the room was in a dim, orange glow. The dancing light moved over Clara's face and reflected in her brown eyes as she watched him.

The Doctor set the candle he'd been using to light all the rest—a pillar candle—down onto the top of her desk. He kept his back to Clara and fiddled absentmindedly with the lighter as he spoke.

"Looks like they're good for more than just decoration."

Clara exhaled a laugh shakily, and when he glanced back at her, he couldn't help but notice that her hand was still clutching his jacket.

"And you probably thought they were silly."

He smiled after a moment. "I did," he admitted.

He sat back down at the desk and stared at the flame while he dreamed of his bed. He longed to be home and done with this, to be able to sleep and put on the kettle and check his email. He hoped soon he'd be able to. They'd made it through the other side of Saturday, and that was something at least.

"You should sleep."

Clara's voice was almost concerned when she spoke. He looked up at her shadowed face and answered honestly.

"I couldn't. How can you? They could come in here at any moment and shoot us."

She hummed tiredly in agreement, her eyes drifting shut as she did.

"Exactly. I couldn't do anything to stop them if I was awake so I might as well sleep." She pointed out.

Well, she had a point there. He'd give her that. But he wasn't ready to give up _that _much control over the situation.

Despite what he wanted, however, he found himself drifting off over the open file. He slept fitfully with his head on top of the desk for an uncertain amount of time. It was Clara's crying that woke him, torn and desperate.

He lifted his heavy head and blinked, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the candlelight.

"Clara?" He asked.

He could just make out her shaking shoulders from the sofa. She didn't appear to have moved at all in whatever time had elapsed.

"Sorry," she said quickly. "Sorry. I—sorry."

He was initially confused as to why she was apologizing. He rubbed his face tiredly and then it hit him: she was apologizing for waking him up. He frowned and squinted her way again, trying to understand what was going on in her head.

"Are you all right?" He tried again.

He remembered the words his mother had told him, when he was eighteen and she was going through her fifth withdrawal. _It hurts, but it's the way it makes me feel in my head that's the worst. I feel like…I'm shit, like without the drug I'm not myself or even anything at all, and there's this overwhelming notion that the pain will never end without the drug. That I'll feel like this forever. It's the most depressed and hopeless I've ever felt. _

"No."

The word was wet and shivering. He sat in the seat for a few more moments, rubbing the side of his face, and then he walked over to the couch. He could see her with better clarity once he was closer. She'd pulled on his jacket, but she hadn't moved from her curled up position. Her eyes were chained uneasily on the carpet and it was the hollowness of them that frightened him.

He kneeled down slowly so he was at eye-level with her and shifted through possible things to say, never quite locating anything that sounded right. _It gets better_ felt awkward and clumsy. _Just hold in there _felt fake and placating.

"Can I do anything to help?" He asked quietly. It was genuine in its uncertainty.

She shook her head, a couple tears dripping from the corners of her eyes. He was semi-content with that answer. Until he caught the brief shine of silver. He turned his attention to her hands, idly fiddling with something, and he realized with a panicked pang that it was the x-acto knife he'd stuck in his jacket pocket. The same jacket he'd draped over her.

He moved his eyes to hers. She hadn't noticed his glance and didn't seem to be thinking much of what she was holding. But addicts always made you feel like they weren't thinking about something until they were doing it. It was usually always deliberate.

He stood up slowly and nervously flexed his fingers, his eyes still on the piece of metal.

"I'll put that back in the desk." He offered stiffly.

Clara looked up from the carpet and met his eyes, slowly turning to glance down at the knife in her hands like she hadn't realized she was holding it. She looked back at him.

"What?" She demanded shortly. "You think I'm going to kill myself with an x-acto knife?"

He didn't reply. He pursed his lips tightly and clenched his fists.

She sighed and shook her head, turning her eyes up to the ceiling as she rolled over onto her back.

"Well, I'm not."

He still didn't move away, though. How many times had his mother insisted she wasn't going to get back on the drug? And how many times had _that _been a suicidal lie?

"I think I'd like to have it." He told her cautiously. His eyes scanned her guarded expression. "Can I have it?"

He watched her fingers curl around it, but he couldn't tell if it was from annoyance at his suspicion or genuine reluctance to be parted from it.

"No."

He had that same feeling he'd had when he'd stumbled upon her, tucked away in the corner with alcohol and the CEO of Calvin Klein. That disarming feeling that made his insides twist.

"Why not?" He asked. He tried to keep his voice casual, but he could hear the hint of desperation in it.

She moved her hand down, tucking her curled up fist back into the jacket pocket, the x-acto knife hidden away like a treasure. Her eyes were hard when she looked back at him, and it was the slightly hysterical glint in her eyes that tipped him off to her current instability.

"Because it's mine." She replied curtly.

He watched her and she watched him, their eyes never parting. He slowly advanced towards her, just to see what she'd do. Her arms tensed predictably.

"Clara," he started gently. "You don't need it. Let me put it up."

Her eyes were echoing with fear, and just like that, he realized she was refusing to give it up for a reason he was very familiar with. As her body punished her with no chance of relenting, she was searching for something to have control over, as she no longer had control over it. He was afraid of the things people did in their quests to control _something_.

He inhaled deeply and slowly, taking another step towards her.

"It's mine," she told him tearfully. "I can hold it if I want to. Why can't I hold it?"

He worked to keep his voice patient.

"Think about this, Clara. This is ridiculous. Just let me put it back in the drawer." He urged. "I know you're scared. I know you're thinking terrible things that you've never thought before. But it's just the pain, okay? And there _is _an end to it. Soon you'll be okay. I promise."

Her lips parted and her hand withdrew slowly from the pocket, hovering tensely over it like she was certain she'd have to tuck it back in at any moment. He took another step towards her and then reached forward quickly, wrapping his hand around her smaller one. She jerked her hand back like he'd expected, but soon she gave up, uncurling her fingers and letting him pull it free from her sweaty hand. He tossed it away from them first and foremost, because even if it was highly unlikely that she _could _kill herself with an x-acto knife, he didn't think she needed bleeding on top of all of this. But as he perched on the edge of the couch, just beside her legs, he was certain she wouldn't have done it.

He slowly dropped her hand from his.

"You're supposed to be listening to _me_, not your mind, remember?"

She swallowed roughly. "Mind's louder. And pain's persuasive."

He shifted back so his hip was pressed against her thigh, turning to face her fully. He leaned over her slightly so he could make out her expression in the curling, smoky light. The orange threw her face into sharp contrast, erasing all evidence of her suffering. She was flushed and well again, even if it was only a trick of the light.

"Surely not louder than me," he tried to tease. His voice was quieter than he'd planned, though. "Remember our screaming battles? We can have another, if you'd like."

She shook her head, her eyes a warm brown as they bore into his. His eyes drifted from her slightly parted lips to her chest, rising and falling in time with the beat of the shadows dancing on the wall. He licked his dry lips and glanced back up at her, his own heart rate jumping. He knew he should have leaned back, but he leaned forward instead, telling himself he needed to so she'd listen to him. But he already had her full attention.

"I don't want to fight." She finally replied. "I can't even think of anything to fight about."

"Oh, I'm sure we could think of something." He replied instantly. "Politics? Religion?"

She exhaled heavily, shaking her head slightly.

"Liberal and agnostic. Which I'm sure is—"

"The same as me?" He completed. She may have been partially right, but he'd found his opportunity. He shifted closer to her, eyes dancing. "What—I moved here from London so you assume I'm liberal and agnostic? Bit narrow minded. Maybe I'm Buddhist."

She scoffed as he figured she might. "No way."

Her interest in their conversation was drifting. He watched her eyes pinch shut for a moment, her hand rising to knead her temples, and he assumed headaches were her current problem. He knew he couldn't do anything to help those, but maybe he could get rid of the thoughts. He searched for some way to piss her off, some way to overwhelm her mind, but he couldn't think of anything truthful to say to anger her. He wished he'd filed away insults when he hated her.

"What can I say?" He finally asked her. His voice was low and almost near-pleading as he examined her eyes, trying to think of something. "What can I say to make you cross? That you're bossy? Stubborn? Far too attractive to—"

Oh. He saw her eyes flash the minute he thought to stop speaking.

"Far too attractive to what? Have such a high ranking job?" She challenged.

It hadn't been what he was going to say. He was going to say _far too attractive to seem so content to have me hovering over you like this_, but the words she'd guessed were easier to claim than those.

"Yeah," he said immediately, but he could tell by the way her lips curved up that she knew he was lying.

Her eyes scanned almost thoughtfully over his face, intently examining, looking for something he wasn't sure of. He took the opportunity to take in the full extent of their current position: her half-off dress, his jacket around her, her back pressed into the cushions. His skin prickled and for once he didn't fight against it, because as met her eyes again, he realized hers might have been too.

"You're flirting with me," she realized. Her voice was slow and smooth and her smirk was almost right, but he could see the way her lips were still trembling slightly. The vague lighting made it easy to pretend everything was okay, but it wasn't.

He took her tone as an okay sign and he curved his body down more, his face only inches above hers. She didn't shy away or move her face back. She merely looked up at him, her expression equal parts intrigued and confused.

And suddenly he found exactly what he was looking for. He didn't know why it'd taken him so long. He slowly eyed her lips, long enough that she'd notice, and then he moved his hand from the back cushion of the couch to her shoulder. He touched the sleeve of her dress and glanced back to her eyes as he slowly drew it back up. He watched her neck move as she swallowed.

"No," he corrected conversationally. "I'm coming onto you."

His own breath lodged somewhere in his chest as she quickly licked her lips, probably without even noticing she had. There was something so in sync for a moment as they breathed and watched each other that the Doctor wondered if this hadn't been what they'd been building up to for months.

"You call this coming onto me?" She finally asked, and the words sent a shock of arousal down into the pit of his stomach. "I know you're out of practice, but I'm sure you can do better than that."

There it was. Their eyes narrowed slightly, gaze challenging and heavy. His heart was filling his chest with too-quick beats at an alarming rate, and he didn't know why it was then of all moments that the thought crossed his mind, but he realized her dress almost perfectly matched the satin on the inside of his jacket.

Her eyes flickered down to his hand, still resting on her shoulder. He set his jaw as he moved his fingers back to the sleeve. This time he met her eyes as he pushed it back down her shoulder. And then he ducked his head slowly, slowly enough that he heard her breath catch and hold as she braced herself. He leaned down and traced his nose over her skin, listening as she finally exhaled the breath she'd hoarded, and then he pressed his lips to her skin before he could second guess whether or not he should. He kissed her once over the soft skin just below her shoulder and then drew back, running his tongue over his lips. Her skin was salty with sweat and it wasn't near as disgusting as it probably should have been.

When he darted his eyes up to hers, he was certain he'd done what he'd set out to do. Her face was clear except for a disarming expression of lust and confusion.

Her voice was wicked when she spoke.

"Is this the method you used to help your mother?"

He moved his face back to where it was before, hovering right over hers. She wasn't smiling, and her body was still shaking away, but she had a familiar, daring glint in her eyes that he realized he rather liked under this circumstance.

"Shut up," he murmured. His hand moved to her slick side without prior thought, tracing down to the swell of her hip. Clara's eyes narrowed even as she shifted her hip further into his touch.

"_Don't_ tell me to shut up." She breathed darkly.

He gripped the side of her hip at the same moment her arms reached up and looped around his neck, her hands pushing roughly into his hair.

"Clara?" He asked her. Her nails grazed his scalp, her eyes moving back up to his in question. He delivered the words slowly and deliberately, his lips so close to hers that he knew she could taste each one. "Shut up. For once, just shut—"

He knew he shouldn't have been surprised when she yanked his face down to hers, lips pressing forcefully to his. He'd understood what he was doing and he'd done it anyway, and he wasn't sure exactly what that said about him. He searched for purchase on her satin gown as she brushed her tongue over his lip, past his teeth, her nails pressing painfully into his scalp. He skimmed his hands over what felt like every bit of her, but he couldn't find any place he could touch with any permanence until he gathered up her dress-already bunched up at her hips-and slid his hand underneath it to the firmness of her thigh. He stroked his thumb back and forth as he kissed her back hard, his teeth slamming painfully into hers in his haste. She didn't seem to mind. He breathed hard through his nose and leaned down until they were chest-to-chest, his hand sliding up to her hip as he tried to get the upper hand, but she was exceedingly determined that he wouldn't have it, and for once, he didn't mind. And he knew she must have still been suffering, but for a moment in time, he thought it possible she didn't even know it.

But she was still unwell, and that was the only thought that pushed through his narrowed mind. He tore his lips back from hers around the same time her hands grew a little weaker in his hair, rising up so he could gauge her expression. Her eyes were closed, but they flickered open quickly, her lips pink and swollen. He swallowed hard and steeled himself before he leaned down and pressed a final kiss to her lips, but this one was softer, slower, a clear indication of the end. She didn't say anything at all when he pulled back.

"All right?" He asked her nervously.

She blinked and then licked her lips almost thoughtfully before giving a quick nod. She slowly lowered her hand from his hair as he eased up off her, his hand sliding slowly out from underneath her dress.

"Yeah. Yeah. I…" she stopped and then started again, looking up at him with an expression of relief. "My mind was frozen. It helped."

He felt his shoulders relax and he sat up fully, content that he'd done some good somehow. He nodded.

"No loud mind? No persuasive pain?" He checked.

She shook her head. "No. And for as long as that's in my head to replay, I don't imagine there will be."

He lifted his eyebrows in surprise at her brashness, his lips curling up into a smirk. While he wished that were true, he knew she'd be suffering acutely once more (if she wasn't already), but he hoped that at least for a moment it'd help. At least for right then he was louder than her mind.

It didn't occur to him to wonder where this would take them, because as far as he was concerned, it was something he'd done simply to help his COO in a desperate situation. (He was sure of it. He was...well, he was _almost _sure). But as he watched her sigh and settle back down, her body twisting as she turned onto her side, he couldn't help but wish he hadn't pulled back.

* * *

He forced himself to get a few hours of sleep, and he expected things would be tense and uncomfortable between them in the morning, once the candles were out and the sun was up. But it wasn't quite like that. Things were never the way you'd imagine them to be, he was learning that almost every hour it seemed.

"I think it's already midafternoon." Clara greeted him. She was sitting on the floor this time, leaning back against the couch with her knees pulled to her chest. His jacket was draped over her legs and he didn't know for sure, but her quivering might have tapered off some.

He rubbed his eyes and blinked up at her in surprise.

"What? I slept that long?" He asked. He pushed the rolling chair around the desk and then peered at the bright light streaming in. "Well. We survived, almost."

Clara lifted her shivering hands into the air, brandishing them for him to see.

"Speak for yourself."

He waved it off. "You're doing fine. You're almost out of the woods, probably."

She groaned and pressed her forehead into her knees. Her words were frustrated.

"'_Probably'_?" She quoted.

He shrugged. "I'm not a withdrawal coach, no matter how it appears."

She didn't reply, and when the silence stretched out longer than he deemed normal, he glanced to her. She was looking at him with an odd expression, one that made his heart tighten.

"Thank you."

He blinked, turning his complete attention to her at those words. He shuffled his feet awkwardly, looking away.

"For what?" He asked gruffly.

He could feel her soft gaze on him even if he wasn't looking towards her.

"For protecting me as much as you could. For helping me. For being so nice when you could have easily left me alone in a corner to suffer." She explained. Her tone curved up a moment later, her words taking on an almost hesitant tone. "For kissing me and giving me a few moments away from the pain."

So they _weren't_ going to pretend it'd never happened. He finally glanced back towards her and took a deep breath. His instinct was to shrug off the words, but he didn't feel she deserved that. He'd seen her at her worst and he didn't hate her. That meant something, he was sure of it.

"Of course." He told her, a little stiffly. "And…thank you for not taking the deal. And for…you know. Fixing all of my mistakes and not bragging about it."

She ran her hands almost nervously up and down her calves, her eyes darting about before settling back on his.

"Well," she started, her voice soft. "You are my CEO. Any deals I take are deals we take together."

That was the way it was supposed to be, wasn't it? It wasn't supposed to be a struggle between them. It was just supposed to be a partnership. It'd taken joining up with her against a common enemy to show him that, and to expose the great potential of that pairing.

He watched the sun set on her sickly skin, and he promised himself that once they got out of this, he wouldn't sit back and watch her self-destruct again. Before it hadn't been his problem, but now it was, because she was his partner. And maybe he'd been wrong all along. Maybe the secret to helping people wasn't controlling them. Maybe it was just listening.


End file.
